


The Bad Sleep Well - 7- Lost

by sharkcar



Series: The Bad Sleep Well [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21511951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkcar/pseuds/sharkcar
Summary: An imagining of the lives of clones after the Clone Wars. Just some simple men, making their ways in the universe, in all their tragicomic glory.1- Past Forgiveness- Cody can't win.2- Dead End- A friend is struck down.3- A Chance- Wolffe realizes he hasn't imagined all the possibilities
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & Original Female Character(s), CC-2224 | Cody/Original Female Character(s), CC-5576-39 | Gregor & CC-3636 | Wolffe, CT-7567 | Rex & Hera Syndulla
Series: The Bad Sleep Well [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1334464
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16





	1. Past Forgiveness

Rishi  
  
Niner couldn’t get over Commander Cody’s house. There was no other word for it but...enchanting. Mostly built of wood, the components were hand carved from top to bottom. Surprising little details were everywhere, a lizard here, a mushroom there, a string of flowers. The atrium went up two floors with an impressive staircase. The huge skylight hung a roof of stars above. The whole house was filled with potted plants and flowers, and even growing trees hung with strings of twinkling lights. In the back was a patio with a sweeping view of the lake and the mountain. The gardens were well tended. It was surreal, it was so pretty, like one of those picture places in holo-vids. Tucked away at every turn were alcoves and shelves filled with Clone War era weapons and armor. Apparently it all belonged to Cody. Cody had logged a ton of missions, from what Niner knew. He must have been issued a lot of equipment. It all looked like it had seen a lot of use. Everywhere there were books, with places to sit and look at them.  
  
A lot of people fit at the gathering, so Niner hoped he could get lost in the crowd so he could be alone for a minute just to enjoy a walk around the patio. But those five buffoons wouldn’t stop following him around. The former Stormtrooper brothers were as socially inept as their lifelong profession would have implied.  
  
Thankfully, Sotna saved him.  
  
“Niner, I have you sitting with me at the queen’s table,” Sotna patted his arm.  
  
“Sweet as!” Gil practically shrieked.  
  
Sotna shook her head, “Sorry, only one spot has opened up.”  
  
“So what about us,” Fiver asked.  
  
“Yeah, what’s with this hierarchy poodoo?” Loagy grumbled.  
  
“Nubes get the kids’ table,” Sotna led them to the winter dining room in the back of the house. She opened the sliding doors. There, several Fett children of both human and hybrid species stared suspiciously at the new guys.  
  
“Guys! Your uncles want to play with you!” she shoved the guys in one by one and closed the sliding doors behind them. She turned and laughed, hearing the delighted shrieks of the children as they asked for piggy back rides.  
  
Niner felt like it was as sweet as something he’d seen out of a holo-vid about the magic of Life Day and family.  
  
He let himself be led before the queen. Rather, he was put next to her. Apparently he was subbing in for Cody, who had gone ‘consulting’, whatever that meant. Niner sat at the end of the table beside the queen, with Sotna on her other side. Blue and Shizla were next to them. The queen’s droid guard stood behind her chair. It was loud with conversation and the table was big enough that people could break off into small conversation groups and not be overheard if they leaned in to talk to each other.  
  
“Lina, you should have seen this brother, he jumped up and stunned those enbee officers himself, pew pew, How you like nicknames, Kicky! Then he kicked this racist piece of filth lieutenant in the chest,” Blue was recounting the story of how Niner had come to be with them. Blue pointed at his brother, “Ain’t that right there, Captain Chief.”  
  
Niner laughed, “You have to understand, I was having a really rough work day.”  
  
“You deserve our gratitude,” Lina lifted her water cup. It was the kind they issue to Imperial prisoners. It looked funny on a table full of much nicer things. But she wanted people to see it. She’d scratched her name on it in a pretty cursive. “We need all the help we can get here. Experience is at a premium.”  
  
Shizla explained, “Over half our population grew up institutionalized, so there has been a lot of need for teachers.”  
  
“Those younger guys with the tattooed faces?” Niner had seen them. He looked down the table.  
  
Lina explained to Niner, “They’re the surplus, the clones that they had on Kamino at the end of the war. Too young to fight, too alive to waste. So they were sent to a weapons factory as test subjects. It was perfectly legal, since lab created humans weren’t even considered worthy of rights.” Lina looked like she wanted to spit. “These men are loyal only to their family. They make up the majority of the population, but their culture is a bit different from veterans’. They didn’t enjoy the same opportunities.”  
  
“So there are divisions, like factions?” Niner asked.  
  
“Like culture, beliefs, customs. Tendencies,” Blue explained, “They are super affectionate with each other, for instance. They grew up as a kind of insular community, so their attachments were close.”  
  
Shizla seemed somewhat amused by the euphemism, “Cody wanted to encourage them to get out more, so he instituted the foreign missions, the Off-world Experience. You do a few years on another planet, meet partners, bring them home. Or set up friendly places to visit off world. If a guy has done O.E., he has that green badge on his uniform and armor.”  
  
“Can’t that be dangerous? A brother setting himself up among the natural born?” Niner asked. It was nice to imagine he had options if he found something on Rishi didn’t suit him. He still had free choice, he thought.  
  
“No more dangerous than any other aspect of any clone’s previous job. Most people don’t even recognize a clone for what they are or care enough to say anything. I’m off world with Cody all the time and we never get recognized,” Blue still ate with his good Kamino table manners. Politely guarding his tray from would-be thieves.  
  
Shizla smirked. She had the table manners of a pirate, eating with her hands and a knife, “People don’t recognize you and Cody as duplicates, I’m shocked, shocked!” She did not sound shocked.  
  
“O.E. tours are good for a brother, they expose you to what else is out there,” Niner chuckled and poured himself a drink. “Most of the brothers I meet these days are former Stormtroopers, those guys have barely ever been anywhere without keeping their helmet on.”  
  
Lina flushed a little and frowned, “Nobody tells them anything. They are just ordered around and given very little direction about what to shoot at. You stand a brother still and he can hit a precise target even in the pouring rain through one of those goddamn foggy helmets. But when all you do is tell people to run as fast as they can and shoot blind at an aspecific target? It’s because all the officers have ordered them to do is go this way and that, on the whims of a competitive crowd of spitting angry men. Nobody performs well with bad leadership, but they don’t have to care how many people they get killed.”  
  
When Lina had been young, it seemed as if she was always caught up in a crusade against injustice. As a citizen of the Republic, she was ostensibly free to speak her mind about how her government was treating people. When she was young, she hadn’t seemed dangerous. Her idealism was cute. Now, with her prison tattoos and a city full of people who would die for her, her anger emitted a tension it hadn’t before.  
  
Niner was reticent at first, but eventually it was like no time had passed. Lina was still just the girl at the neighborhood lunch counter. She asked him about mutual friends. They’d had some laughs about things they remembered. It was some time after dessert, most of the company proceeded back to the atrium and some people got started on instruments and singing. Smaller groups were everywhere, telling stories, discussing the state of the crops, the state of the business, the state of the kids. Niner felt like he didn’t have much to contribute. The queen was usually among the guests, joining in the music and having animated discussions, holding babies, hugging children and pets. Sincerely interested in everyone’s story. Tonight, the queen excused herself and said that she needed to be alone for a while. It had been a long day.  
  
Niner was left to Sotna, who had been quietly observing him all night, saying very little.  
  
“Niner, I need to know if I can trust you,” she looked straight into his eyes, her own orange eyes seeming to flicker in the dinner light.  
  
Shizla and Blue had turned to talk to the people on the other sides of them, effectively and unsuspiciously cutting Sotna and Niner from the rest of the groups still in the room. Sotna and Niner leaned over the table to hear each other.  
  
Niner realized his perfect vision was returning, “Absolutely.”  
  
“I need to know if you believe in what we’re trying to do here, what we’re trying to build,” her voice quavered ever so slightly.  
  
“You really make the case for this place,” Niner felt like he was falling victim to a high pressure sales pitch. Yet, he’d seen the results for himself. “I knew Lina, I know she is a good person. She cares about people. And Cody, he’s about the smartest brother there ever was. He always saw angles nobody else did.”  
  
“What if I told you he was more than that?” Sotna was serious.  
  
“What?” Niner laughed a bit nervously.  
  
“A small but growing number of us believe that it is his destiny to save us. We think he might have some kind of help. Something supernatural. He hides it, he refuses to say. Acts as if it is not true, but then he performs miracles. He brings justice and order out of chaos. He has pledged himself to the queen to protect her and all of her people. You can understand if we’re more than a little impressed, given what we’re comparing him to for leadership. We find it easy to believe that he was chosen for this purpose.”  
  
“Look, I’ve been trained to be skeptical. I know Cody, too. He did a lot of messed up stuff. He wasn’t always so altruistic,” Niner sighed, “I love my brothers. We have always been a family army made to serve a government, if this is the government we serve now, then I am glad to be with them. But I think Cody himself would be the first to admit he is just another brother, he knows he’s not all powerful with some mandate from the Force or something. He didn’t believe in destiny. That being said, I do love that brother. I’ll fight for his ideals as long as they’re good. He seems to have chosen his leader well. Is she alright?”  
  
“We all have our thresholds. She probably just needed a break. She does sometimes,” Sotna seemed casual about it.  
  
“Did you grow up here?” Niner tried to politely change the subject from religion.  
  
“A lot of the time. The queen is almost like a second mother to me. And Cody, of course, he’s like my father,” Sotna explained.  
  
“Huh, so you’re practically my niece. Nice to have you as family,” Niner held out his hand to be slapped. Sotna did it without hesitation, chuckling awkwardly at the strange comment.  
  
“Can you do me a favor, though, Uncle? Even if you don’t want to frame it as a sacred duty…” Sotna looked serious.  
  
“Sure...” Niner didn’t mind if he did things he chose to himself for people he really liked.  
  
“Don’t let those five other new guys out of your sight. If you can, scan their wrist chips without them knowing,” she handed him a scanner pen loaded with a datachip.  
  
“Are you serious?” Niner thought that kind of invasion was one of the things brothers most detested about living under the Empire. He was surprised to find it there.  
  
Fett clones from Kamino were all equipped with a wrist chip which listed their vitals and complete military record without a day unaccounted for. Every embarrassing disease they’d been treated for. Every citation for drunkenness. Every failure.  
  
“Am I allowed to know what this is about?” Niner didn’t want to be drawn into personal disputes already, he’d just gotten there. He just wanted to be free to do his job in peace. He certainly didn’t want his wrist scanned.  
  
“Something one of them told me…I just need to check,” she looked at the datachip.  
  
“Look, if any one of these guys is up to anything, I haven’t seen it. We just got here today,” it was instinctual to Niner to protect those close to him. “I would need to see proof. If they’ve done something wrong, I could straighten them out, I’m sure. I sort of feel responsible...” Niner suddenly realized he was panicking a little. Covering for his brothers came naturally to him. He began to sweat as he realized he didn’t really know any of those brothers, they’d been assigned to his ship just a few days before.  
  
Sotna was calm, “It is possibly nothing, it is about something he might have seen or witnessed. Cody is very interested in knowing about some things that happened during the war.”  
  
“None of them has mentioned being around for anything important. I think these guys were pretty insignificant. If anything, they might lie about knowing something important to seem like a big deal. I doubt they will be very helpful,” Niner gave his honest impression, “people don’t tell Stormtroopers much,” he agreed with what the queen had said.  
  
Sotna wasn’t a clone, so Niner assumed he had to explain them, the way he automatically did his whole life.  
  
Sotna looked incredulous, “If there is a discrepancy, we just want to talk to him. Maybe it was HOW he said it. It sounded like it was programmed. If it’s a lie, I need to know why he said it. It might not be voluntary. If there appears to be mind control, we will figure it out.”  
  
“Then I guess I reluctantly accept your quest, M’Lady,” Niner poured himself a drink. He at least felt good knowing Sotna was just trying to protect people. Niner just felt like he had a right to take some time to make up his mind for himself. He didn’t think he was the kind of brother to be swept away in all the flash without checking under the hood.  
  
“You have been granted the go ahead for your first mission. Are you clean and ready for duty?” Sotna asked.  
  
“That, as a Fett clone, I can say, is always a yes,” Captain Niner had forgotten his promotion already. Everything was just so surreal. He could scarcely believe it wasn’t all some dream that he would wake up from.  
  
“Good, it’s just a simple orbit and tow for some hardware. You won’t even have to leave your ship. Here is all you need to know for now,” Sotna handed him the briefing she’d typed up for her mother’s moon mission. People were only told about their parts in the plan as an intelligence precaution.  
  
Sotna headed out, leaving Niner to retrieve his new charges and take them back to their temporary lodging at the rest house, a kind of hostel across from Cody’s home. It was as nice a place as could be to be under surveillance, Niner mused.  
  
“They asked to show me their martial arts moves, then they used me as a sparring dummy in a coordinated attack,” Ray complained.  
  
“Those girls took turns psychoanalyzing me...” Loagy had been cornered by Cody and Lina’s eldest children.  
  
“The little green ones kept trying to feed me things,” Timi laughed.  
  
“I mean, they just picked me apart like ravens on a carcass…half the words they were using I didn’t even know. They zeroed in on every insecurity and then pointed out a bunch more...” Loagy rubbed his forehead.  
  
“It’s called an education, numbwit, these kids are smart,” Niner smiled.  
  
Fiver put in, “I heard there is a school here. Not a facility like the academy, but kids put in mandatory hours of training, and then they go home to their families. That one little boy was telling me there is a lot of reading required, he complained about his homework. But he speaks four different languages and plays the classical keyboard.”  
  
Niner chuckled. His brothers were always so competitive. As parents, they must be hovering overachievers.  
  
\--

  


“Ow! Isn’t there a pill or something,” Niner was going through his second round of injections at the hospital the next morning. He’d learn how to give them to himself in time.  
  
“Cody hates needles, so he kept asking about that,” a tattoo faced brother who had been introduced as ‘Dr. Marvelous’ chuckled. “We told him pills would cause hair loss, so he shut right up.”  
  
“Do they?” Niner asked, having a hard time believing that Cody would be stupid enough to be tricked.  
  
“Maybe. Who knows?” Marv was cheerful. Niner was unused to seeing clones that way. “We just said it to get him off our backs. Developing things takes time, never mind medical training required to certify more doctors. We’re busy.”  
  
The Kaminoan doctor drawing blood from the former Stormtroopers for lab tests nodded, “Yes, but then we had that week where Cody was threatening to find legitimate scientists who might like to defect, who could cure male pattern baldness. The Prime Ministra would not sign off on that because she told him hair was completely irrelevant, although they got into a rather absurd argument because she said she would market the cure to insecure men in the galaxy, while he wanted to keep it for his people as a tactical advantage. All I did was point out that I could make humans any way they wanted….”  
  
“Dad...he doesn’t want to hear all that drama,” Marv spoke to him as if he was senile. Really, it had always been difficult for Kaminoans to understand humans’ social cues.  
  
The Kaminoan shrugged and started humming a song from a musical play.  
  
Niner felt awkward, since he was new still and everyone seemed to know everything about everyone else there. He shrugged, “Politics, you know?”  
  
“So how do you feel?” the Kaminoan asked, holding his datapad at the ready.  
  
“And do be honest, this is for posterity,” Marv laughed to himself.  
  
“Good actually. A lot of aches and pains are gone,” he answered honestly, hoping brother doctor wasn’t laughing at him. “Is that some kind of steroid or...”  
  
“The serum is a gene therapy. The cells are programmed to attach and regenerate wherever they are needed. The effect can feel like some backwards aging as you recover in places where you have just gotten used to pain. Joints and the like,” the Kaminoan explained.  
  
“So I’ll feel younger?” Niner asked. His vision was now better than 20/20. He looked over at the other five guys who came in with him.  
  
“Yes, and with regular injections, you won’t ever age from this point on,” Marv adjusted his ring. It was gold with a bezel inscribed with an intaglio of himself driving a landspeeder. Another equally ostentatious ring declared him a trained and certified medical professional with a symbol formed by tiny colored gems. It was gaudy, but Niner thought it would be fun to wear something like it. Navy regs never allowed things like that. That way, if he ever had to backhand somebody, they’d know just who’d done it. 

–

  


Cody had gotten home from Saleucami after dinner. He walked straight to his home, past the droid guards at the gate. At the entrance, he met Niki’s protocol droid, who was there snaking the best leftovers for his mistress. She had just arrived at home. All the pacing and swearing at Cody because she thought he was laughing at her must have keyed her up to devour some flesh.  
  
“Don’t forget the hot sauce for those mynock wings this time,” Cody reminded the droid. Last time it had screwed up when Niki was hangry, she had shot it to pieces. Cody’d taken away her gun at Sotna’s behest.  
  
The droid nodded and headed to the entrance to the lifts for the catacombs.  
  
Everything was quiet in the house, so Cody made his way on his assassin’s feet to his own bedroom upstairs. Outside the large windows, the cratered moon was hanging above the mountain. The illuminous light bathed everything in cooler hues, the lake, the city, the snow on the peak.  
  
His wife was not in the room.  
  
He looked down from the window and found her pacing around the gazebo in the garden, still in the dress she’d worn to dinner that night.  
  
His heart rate quickened slightly. He decided to be romantic.  
  
He changed out of his silly pornographer costume, careful to fold it and stack it, as was automatic. He then went to the closet and chose something. His outfits weren’t that different from the uniforms he’d had his whole life, the colors were muted, the style lacking in ostentation. But the stuff he wore now was a lot better made, well-tailored and of nicer material. It was a subtle but obvious difference. Either way, he knew how to walk with his back straight, that helped carry it off.  
  
He strolled into his garden doing his best poor man’s impression of a prince.  
  
His queen turned to him and smiled like something out of a holovid. Cody went to her and took her hands in his and kissed them.  
  
Lina looked softened in the light, “Was it successful?”  
  
“It was,” Cody was bursting to tell her. But it could wait. “I missed you,” he took her face in his hands and kissed her before she could speak again. He put his forehead against hers and stroked her hair with one hand. “I have something for you.” He retrieved a holo-com from his belt. It ignited to life and there before her was the face of her long lost child.  
  
Lina’s hands went to her mouth to cover it involuntarily.  
  
“The boys were able to retrieve a droid on Concord Dawn who had seen her,” Cody reported to his queen. He had purposefully cropped the holo-still so that Rex was not in it.  
  
Lina hugged her husband close and cried, “She’s grown up.” After a while, she whispered, “How am I ever going to explain to her...what we’ve been doing all these years? Will she ever understand?”  
  
Cody felt cut. He held Lina to his chest with his free hand and looked away, so she wouldn’t see the anger in his expression.  
  
He was doing the best he could. Wasn’t anything going to be good enough any more?  
  
Cody shuddered as if a chill ran through him. Then he shook it off and held his wife closer for warmth, “The boys are following two possible new leads.” He purposefully stopped short of what those leads were. How he did things on missions was his business.  
  
As usual, Lina didn’t question her chief of security about his methods. Her protector was doing what he was trained to do. She trusted his judgment on matters of execution.  
  
“I love you,” he told her the truth.  
  
She nuzzled his face with hers and didn’t look at him. She whispered, “I love you, too.”  
  
Cody’s guilt caused him to detect a hint of pretense in it.  
  
The thought bubbled up out of nowhere, just a faint hint of a whisper in the voice of his former master. ‘She is a liar,’ it hissed.  
  
Suddenly, before his eyes, Cody could almost see the ghostly wrinkled grotesque face smiling at him.  
  
He switched off the holo-viewer and put it in a pocket.  
  
Practice had left Cody able to tell that voice to kark off.  
  
Cody closed his eyes and abandoned his thoughts to focus on the moment. His hands trembled slightly as he caressed his wife, like trying to function through a hangover.  
  
He could have told her then. What he knew about Rex. It might not have mattered so much. She might have forgiven him then, while she was standing there loving him. While it was just the two of them there, in that beautiful place, in that beautiful light. But when Cody realized he should unburden himself, he found he didn’t want to. This was his life and Rex had no business in it.  
  
Anyway, he reassured himself, he was probably already past forgiveness, so getting away with the lie was his only hope.  
  
At least until Lina’s daughter was back to her. Then nothing else would matter. People always forgave the means if it turned out right in the end.  
  
–  
  
Niner had finally been able to pawn off his little entourage on Blue after Rodia. Those five former Stormtroopers had been following him like they’d been stuck to his ass since they’d arrived. Even on the Rodia mission. All he had to do was an orbit and tow, he didn’t need troops. They didn’t contribute anything, they just stood around behind his back all the time, looking like they were taking partial credit. It had really annoyed Niner. Any time anyone offered him a drink or a smoke, they always had to offer these guys. Niner was worried they were hurting his chances to make friends. He didn’t want to seem like a mooching drain on the resources. He finally had a chance to do something on his own that wasn’t an exercise in futility, and wouldn’t you know it, every step forward, there were some brothers who wanted to remind you that they deserved a piece. Niner was used to that with his superiors. With natural born Imperial officers, it was just a given that you were expected to praise their mercy just because you still had a job. And Niner was happy to do it, because he feared for his life and health. But he was unused to this kind of behavior from his brothers. Probably it had never happened to him because he had never had enough credit to go around.  
  
On the Rodia mission, Niner’s brother Blue offered to take them when they got back to Rishi, and Blue commed Sotna to tell her he’d watch them. Blue conscripted them for manual labor, telling them that was the hazing ritual any shiny had to go through.  
  
After Rodia, Niner had used his newfound freedom to move around the colony unattended and gone to have dinner with his old classmate Wirey and his family. They’d had a grand time, just sitting around his barbecue pit, having a smoke and laughing about academy antics. It had felt good to laugh. To feel safe enough to laugh.

  


\--  
  
The next day, there was an event, so Wirey invited Niner to go along. Niner was glad to arrive at the park with a group he had chosen to be with. He thought people were judging him by the company he kept and he preferred to be able to decide that for himself. Niner felt self-conscious when lots of people turned to look at him when he got out of Wirey’s speeder at the park. They had questioning eyes. That scared him a little. He panicked and stood still. Clones were unused to being novel among their own.  
  
“Niner!” Sotna called and waved. She came walking over. Everyone was now looking at her. She took Niner’s arm and led him away, calling back to Wirey, “I just need this guy for a minute.” Niner found that people let beautiful, smiling, young girls do whatever they wanted. He followed obediently.  
  
Sotna led them in a casual stroll, “Did you get what I asked you?”  
  
He took a datachip out of his pocket, “I took a scan of each wrist before they were able to board for the mission. I said it was just a vaccine check.”  
  
She made eye contact, which Niner found soothing. “Breathe. You’ve done well.”  
  
He did as he was told. When he got his breath back, he looked at her apologetically. “I guess I’m just nervous. I’ve never been this on my own before.”  
  
She looked off and away towards the sky, “A lot of guys are like this when they get here. It’s a big change to try somewhere new. But you can trust us here, just as we have trusted you.”  
  
Niner sighed, “You really make the case for this place.”  
  
“It’s my home. It’s my job to inspire loyalty around here,” Sotna told him.  
  
“Enough with the high pressure sales tactics, I want to stay,” Niner looked down a little shyly. “Listen, do you know a prostitute called C.C.? Maybe goes by Niki? I heard she lives here,” Niner blushed and scratched the back of his neck, “but I haven’t seen her. I’d love to say hello.” Niner looked down, “She probably won’t remember me, but she’s really special to a lot of us.”  
  
“Wasn’t she on Rodia?” Sotna looked suspicious.  
  
“Oh no...I mean, she might have been. I didn’t go to the planet, my crew and I stayed on the Meeb. I never saw her, maybe she went with Cody, he said he had something to do, so he didn’t come back with us,” he admitted, realizing he might have made it sound worse than it was.  
  
Sotna didn’t pursue it, but she had noticed, “I do know her, of course. She’s my mommy.”  
  
Niner blushed worse than he ever had in his life.  
  
–  
  
Sotna said goodbye to Niner and he went back to help Wirey set up the blanket and lawn chairs. She had told him he would undoubtedly see her mommy later. Everyone always did.  
  
Sotna went to the paramedics’ station. She waved at the Captain of the Paramedics’ Corps, Dr. Freedom, standing in his uniform with his kit. He waved her through, looking tough and showing a gold ring that bore an intaglio of a thermal detonator with wings, a medical certification ring with the jewels, and a third with a symbol from his Corps.  
  
In the tent, Sotna looked around to be sure she was alone. Her own gold ring a small thing she wore on the chain she used for her personal secure device. The ring was tiny because she had received it from her mommy when she first came to live on Rishi. It was in the shape of a tooka.  
  
She put the chip into the datapad that was attached to her belt by a wallet chain and sat in a holster. She scanned the record files, making mental notes of dates and places. Suddenly, she found the precise thing she was looking for. It stood floating before her, the contradiction to what she was sure she’d been told. The proof of the lie. It was everything she could do to keep from laughing for joy. She’d done it!  
  
Sotna knew she needed to act fast. She rushed from the tent and off in the direction of the main stage to find Cody.  
  
No one thought anything of it when a clone passed by, she took him by the arm and led him away. Nobody had taken special notice of which clone he was.

  


\--  
  
Everyone was out to get a good view of the ceremony. A temporary wooden stage had been set up in front of the entrance to the city’s new public sporting complex. Cody had wanted some decent facilities so he could watch live competitions.  
  
The colony younglings were already organized into game leagues at school. Different clubs around the colony formed sport leagues every year. Niki saw a future in sports broadcasting for the Outer Rim markets, where things one could gamble on were in high demand, and quality programming was hard to come by. So she didn’t mind funding the venture. Seedy betting parlors all over the galaxy would soon routinely be showing events, ‘Live from Commander Bly Stadium’. Cody and Niki agreed Bly would have liked that. Of course, they were careful never to reveal in the broadcasts the world said facility was located upon. They would name a phony location. But it didn’t much matter to their audience. All they saw was bodies in uniforms.  
  
All of the colony had turned out for the big day. They were having a ceremony for its grand opening and the unveiling of an abstract piece of sculpture at the front.  
  
It seemed that most of the citizens had chosen to wear some kind of uniform to the event, resulting in a scene that was rendered in mosaic.  
  
Cody had objected to the conformity codes, but he’d been voted down by his fellow clones, who felt it was good to acknowledge they were part of a structured group. They just felt more comfortable that way, so most voters said. Niki had supported the uniform codes just because Cody was against them and she lived to see him squirm. Of course, she exempted anyone from the codes if they didn’t want to participate, and they weren’t required all the time. Then she and Sotna designed uniforms that were actually sharp and stylish. So even the kids enjoyed being seen around town on duty because marching around in good looking uniforms brought them respect. Cody had to admit, it made him proud to see his kids this way, despite his favoring their more creative tendencies. Fetts always did look good in uniform, his wife said.  
  
The colony’s older children were differentiated in society by their age groups in the Civic Scouts. They didn’t wear uniforms all the time, the way many of their fathers had at their physiological ages. They wore them usually only when they were performing civic duty, such as event staff for a government ceremony. The queen’s daughters, Brii and Nau, were from the very first generation of clone children, so they wore black. The triplets, Junior, Aliik and Atin were younger, so theirs were red. Their peer groups were spread out over the park. There were thousands of kids, with more born every day.  
  
Briikasar and Nau, had always felt somewhat under scrutiny around the colony. As the first natural born grandchildren of Jango Fett, they were what their people called ‘Rishi Famous’. As representatives of their generation, everyone in the colony felt they had a right to comment on everything they did, good or ill. Their father was the one who demanded that his children had a little space to figure out who they were on their own. To his disappointment, sometimes they just wanted to be typical kids their age and do what the other kids were doing.  
  
Civic Scouts were given light duty, event security, manning the first aid stations, distributing beverages to keep people hydrated. It was easy. Most people had brought their own picnic blankets and were seated in groups on the grass. So as the kids circulated, they were more often than not offered snacks and would chat with everyone about how they were doing. The colony always had the feel of a big village, where everyone was family and neighbors. Because, in fact, they were. Everyone knew everyone’s story, news traveled fast as wind.  
  
–

Cody was not uncomfortable on a dias, he had given over a thousand military briefings of one sort or another. He had been a classroom instructor of younger clones while at the academy from the time he was an eight year old. But in those cases, the tone was straightforward. Present the facts as objectively as possible. His feelings about matters didn’t come into play.  
  
One of the uncomfortable realities of his more recently acquired public life was that his people were suddenly very interested in how he felt about everything.  
  
Cody tried to ad lib as if he was nervous, “Welcome. I...um...I can’t say I’m necessarily happy to be doing this. Naming a park for my wonderful brother who is dead.”  
  
He looked at Niki, who was shaking her head. She knew he was acting already.  
  
“Not many of you knew Commander Bly, but from the time we were little kids it was obvious he was really smart. He had an amazing life,” Cody began.  
  
He looked at Lina, who nodded.  
  
“Some of you men served under him. You’ve already told us many times about those campaigns. I don’t need to list his war record, you kids have all heard of his heroism enough times in your history classes.” He felt a lump rise behind his tonsils. He closed his eyes and took a breath. “I see parts of him sometimes in you younglings.” Cody swallowed. It was easy for him to get in touch with the emotions required for good public speaking. He had more than enough real pain to tap into. “I’d like to tell you a story.”  
  
The audience clapped and cheered.  
  
“So back in the academy, we had routine standardized testing,” Cody’s tone grew more casual.  
  
The audience groaned.  
  
“It was tedious and we all hated it. Bly developed a simple finger tapping code. All he had to do was tap a code for which of the multiple choices was the answer to each question. That way we’d all get the answers immediately and the test would be over faster. We all passed the code around and knew it practically overnight. We changed the codes often, so the cloners had a hard time knowing we were doing more than fidgeting. In testing, first reliably intelligent brother who knew the answer would tap the code, we’d all get the answer right, then move on, next one, we’d all put the same answer. We weren’t speaking or passing notes or copying. We could tell who smart brothers were, though, by who tapped the code in first.”  
  
The audience laughed. Even Niki.  
  
“Tests were taking no time at all and there was no curve, we were all right all the time. It was obviously cheating, but the cloners couldn’t understand how. It was messing with their data. They wondered if it was some unforeseen development in the species. When the Kaminoans figured it out, they forbade tapping. So we developed a coughing code. Then a yawning code. A code of elaborate gestures. Then facial expressions. Every time they forbade something, we came up with something else.” Cody paused only for a few seconds.  
  
They had to change the way they did testing after that. Every clone there remembered they forced them to wear headsets that shocked them if they looked anywhere but the screen. Cody didn’t have to say it. He didn’t want to say it.  
  
There were Kaminoans in the audience. Cody had given them refuge to escape forced labor under the Empire. The reconciliation between man and maker had taken lots of work. But these Kaminoans were doctors and scientists who had benefited his people immeasurably. They had allowed his people to remain healthy and to reproduce. Cody felt he didn’t need to say that either.  
  
He’d just picked a story to tell and told it the way he thought it should be told.  
  
“We never questioned whether or not we would do it. Bly was just like that. A natural leader. He had good ideas. Solutions, not complaints. We could have just continued to put up with the nuisance of testing and given the results they wanted. But Bly said, no. He came up with something we could do about it. I really liked that about him. It takes a really brave person to be the first one to say no.”  
  
Cody paused again.  
  
The crowd was hushed.  
  
They all knew the context.  
  
Killing their leaders and friends hadn’t made sense to the clones who’d received Order 66. They’d just heard the Chancellor’s command and, with consciousness intact, somehow their free will was gone. The leadership, men like Cody and Bly, directly participated in the slaughter. The newly anointed Emperor relied on them to explain their actions to the curious Senate and their confused troops after the war was over. Order 66 wasn’t anything any one of them had chosen, but the leadership had been the first to see that the clones had been forced to own it or die. Bly was best known as the first brother to self-execute over the guilt. The first one to act on the knowledge that what they’d done was wrong and couldn’t be rationalized away.  
  
Bly never knew about the mind control chips. Cody knew the case for their innocence did not seem reasonable, and he had already maintained under oath on galaxy wide broadcasts that he had made the decision himself. He had always made sure his people knew the truth. He was believable among his family members because of who he was, so everyone took his version of events on faith. His people had spent a lot of time pursuing leads trying to prove Cody’s point of view, but the evidence had been elusive. It had become like a holy quest.  
  
Cody recovered from the brief silence, as he knew would be most effective. He was suddenly aware of that rush one got when receiving mass attention. Then he simply said, “I miss Bly every day. May this place honor him.” He bowed his head, “Thank you to all the people who helped with it,” Cody finished, “Now, the person who deserves all the credit for putting this together, Niki.”  
  
Cody struggled to not look too impressed with himself. But everyone was cheering. It had gone better than he or Niki had expected. Niki smiled and flashed a rude gesture at him, telling him where he could stuff his massive ego. Cody’s wife laughed at the joke. He descended the stage past the uniformed Civic Guardsmen.  
  
Niki got up and the crowd gave her thunderous applause. Everyone was cheering, including Cody’s family. Including Cody himself. She gave a sales pitch for the complex, with a virtual tour running on the screen behind her. The complex was incredible. She waved and soaked up the adulation for a few minutes, showing off her spectacular ceremony dress. Then she looked out at the crowd, noticed Niner and blew a kiss. He found his eyes tearing up.  
  
“Wow! Look at all of you!” Niki smiled, flashing her perfect teeth. “Alright, alright,” the noise of the crowd died down. “I know your programs say that the Queen was going to say a few words, but she would like to cede her time because we put together a little surprise for you.”  
  
Almost involuntarily, the crowd was on its feet again. Niki was theatrical, everyone always knew they could expect a spectacle. She pointed from the dias on one end of the stage, to the other side, where a curtain was pulled back.  
  
A musical act came out performing the result of obvious hours of rehearsal. They were a young band Niki had been developing. The group of good-looking siblings had been given by their parents to a religious cult, for whom they were working without pay. They were forced to perform songs written by the pastor and were often sleep deprived and physically abused on their rigorous tour schedules. They had wanted to escape, so they had contacted Niki through a musicians’ network on the holo-net. She asked the colony to give them refuge if they defected. The DQA had affected a rescue and offered them a place to live and make their art in freedom and have their own money. In this way, Niki had amassed quite a collection of creative people and set to work promoting their output in the wider galaxy through a production company that claimed to be based on Corellia. Most illegal literature and entertainment claimed to originate in Corellia, which was an active port with looser laws than in the Core. It was technically illegal to make art or music with anti-Imperial messages, but on the extensive black market, banned or ‘offensive’ music was very popular, even within the Empire among the more rebellious youth. It was one of the colony’s more lucrative endeavors. The cult band had become a sensation with the younglings in the colony as soon as they’d arrived. After the opening number, the group did a cover of a song from some Chandrilan boy band that had been popular during the war. Of course it brought the audience to tears. Fetts were a sentimental bunch.  
  
At the side of the stage, Cody clapped, but leaned over and yelled to Niki over the applause, “Isn’t that sappy breakup song a little inappropriate for a ceremonial occasion like this?” Cody happened to know Bly didn’t even like popular music.  
  
Niki shook her head at him in disbelief. “It’s about Bly,” she insisted cryptically, flicking her lekku in a gesture that meant she couldn’t believe he was so stupid.  
  
The band then continued on to another number, with the colony’s citizens sitting on blankets or standing. Eating from the communal potluck buffet.  
  
Suddenly a loud crack and a wave of heat came from the direction of the stage. Screams followed in a ripple.  
  
“Bomb!” someone shouted.  
  
The abandoned dias had shattered and one end of the stage erupted in flames.  
  



	2. Dead End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex and Kallus go recruiting and get some bad news.

Mandalore

“Wow, never thought we’d wind up back here,” Sh’ehn and his foster brothers chuckled and kicked at the dirt as they walked.

“You’ve been here before?” the bartender droid asked. He was a medical model, so really good with details.

“We used to live here, you know,” Stabbi brushed some ash off the shirt he was ‘borrowing’ off the ground. They had grown up on Sundari, just a few of millions of unaccompanied minors who had flooded Mandalore’s capital after conflicts in the sector had left them evacuated, then given nowhere else to go. They’d been mostly exploited and sleeping on the streets. Then Gar Saxon wanted to move out the homeless from the city ahead of a Meshgeroya Cup tournament that Mas Amedda was coming to attend. So the three boys were some of thousands of poor Mando children sent to reform schools off world, found guilty of vagrancy and other petty crimes.

The warden of the prison promptly sold Sh’ehn, Goran and Stabbi as cheap labor to a Hutt. It was how Cody found them in a spaceport. He’d just walked up out of nowhere and shot the Hutt between the eyes. Then, he told them in their native language to follow him so they did. After that, they considered him their head of House.

They didn’t dare wear his colors on the homeland, though. Fett clones were still a topic that endlessly needled the proud Mando nobility. Jango Fett had been a mongrel thug so they all seemed to collectively refuse to acknowledge him as worthy of being called one of them. His descendants were all unnatural, and so not technically classed as equal humans. ‘Empty Armor’ was one of many choice terms for a Fett. Victory didn’t want to be recognizable, the hate filled environment was a dangerous place for him.  
  
So on this fine sunny day, the boys were dressing up in some armor they found abandoned in the desert. The boys observed that they were going to be masquerading as Clan Wren.

The four of them and their droid were sifting through the remains of a skirmish site. There didn’t seem to be anyone around, whoever it had been must have dumped their armor and fled, there was not a soul. So without hesitation, they’d started changing into the clothes.

Victory smacked a helmet a few times, emptying some dust.

“Halt! Who are you and why are you desecrating this site?” The voice from the T-Visor bellowed at them. His Mando’a was terribly pronounced. His colors matched the things they were retrieving.

Sh’ehn spun a tale quickly. Being a native Mando, his language was unquestionably fluent, “We were ambushed, we had our things stolen and we need something so that we can re-join the fight....we meant no disrespect. We’re stragglers. We didn’t want to be cowards, so we honor the owners by taking up their armor and fighting in their names.” They had found the clothes and armor lying around in the desert near the Saxon family outpost. Word had it, it was where Fenn Rau was holed up, interrogating Saxon family prisoners to his heart’s content.

Tristan Wren removed his helmet and looked more closely at Victory. Vic tried to casually keep his hand near his gun.

Instead, Count Wren smiled, “Wait, I have seen you before, haven’t I? You’re Sabine’s friend, I saw you on the comlink once, remember? Nice tattoos. You rebels like to change your appearances dramatically,” he looked closely at Victory’s ornament. “You...are from the Rebellion? Do you bring a message from my sister?”

Vic was completely confused as to who he was supposed to be, but he didn’t think Count Wren knew much about that either. So he went with it, “Look, we are on the run from the Empire. The most we need is just to ask Fenn Rau a question or two about a mutual acquaintance. Then we’ll be on our way. You know...back to the Rebellion,” it was news to Victory that a clone was fighting with the rumored Rebellion Against the Empire. But he guessed it made sense. The veteran geezers turned up all over, often in the most unexpected places.

Another Mando arrived. “Count Wren, what is going on here?”

“Oh, these guys are just retrieving their things.” Tristan vouched. Sh’ehn, Goran and Stabbi looked at each other, astonished that anyone could be this big a hick.

“Alright, lets get you back to the outpost. Your armor is in a sorry state. Just filthy,” the T-visor guy smacked Stabbi on the chest. Dust crumbled from the uniform. Stabbi suddenly realized the dust was ash of was what was left of the last guy who had worn it. Tristan tried to hide his horrified look. That guy was his cousin.

\--

  


The Count sent his counterpart back to tell Fenn Rau they were coming.  
  
“We’ll have to be discreet in my camp, that armor will be recognized. I’ll just explain everything to Fenn Rau,” Tristan was explaining to Victory, who he thought was Captain Rex. They had to walk back because only Tristan had a jetpack.  
  
They followed along, as they walked through the Anti-Imperial forces, they couldn’t help but fan boy. Since they had grown up on The Homeworld, they were familiar with people and news as cultural insiders. These nobility were celebrities to them because it was something everybody on Sundari talked about.  
  
They muttered among themselves. Tristan didn’t seem to be understanding very well. Wrens were legendary butchers of the language.  
  
“Ooooooh, there goes Count Teri! His great great grandfather slaughtered an entire sentient race on a moon in the Jakelia System because he wanted something to feed to his massiffs. Of course his clan raped all the women first. They called it a blood ritual, so what they were doing was sacred,” Stabbi’s eyes widened, “Some of his guys have explicit tattoos that reference it.”  
  
“Whoa, that sounds pretty bad. But look at the guy over there with the points coming out of his helmet. That’s Zachby of clan Min,” Goran angled his eyes in the direction, “That guy’s ancestor was the head of House and he liked to peep on women in the refresher. This escalated to him raping one of his guys’ wives. He didn’t want anyone to find out, so he put the husband on the front lines and tells all his guys to abandon him on the battlefield so he’s sure to die.”  
  
“The tyranny. Hey, the guy with the extracted wrist blades, when his ancestor was head of House, he had this sex slave who he had kidnapped from her people. But he had to give her away because his people thought it would stem a communicable disease outbreak. It was probably an STD because of all the indiscriminate raping these guys were doing. So, since he can’t be expected to stop forcing himself on people, he takes another guy’s sex slave. It was a real discussion, they had, over who was right in this situation.”  
  
“I remember that, how did that shake out?” Victory asked. He had grown up on a prison on Rothana. The three had taken it upon themselves to educate him about all their Mando cultural references.  
  
“Press framed it as a redemption because the other guy said he was sorry after desecrating a corpse on the battlefield later. He’s still a national hero,” Sh’ehn shrugged.  
  
Tristan was a bit of a provincial. He didn’t know many of their references. They were much more cosmopolitan in a way, they knew all the players and how they related, who’d dated whom, who hated the other ones and why. Growing up on Sundari, they had access to the language of pop culture.  
  
Nevertheless, Count Tristan was dubious, “How do you know they did all that stuff? I think you’re making it up?”  
  
“Don’t you actually read about your own history? We know they did it, because they said they did it, back then, they were proud of it,” Goran tried not to laugh. “They made lots of holo-vids about it.”  
  
“I heard about their bravery. What’s wrong with those stories,” Tristan was emotional. It was his culture. It felt like they were insulting his mother.  
  
“If that’s all you want to remember, fine, if it inspires you. But why choose to stop telling stories of these other things they did?” Stabbi looked around.  
  
“Well, wouldn’t you worry that someone might get the idea to be inspired by that stuff too?” Tristan defended reasonably.  
  
“You can’t find people to tell stories about who were brave and who weren’t assholes?” Victory asked him.  
  
“You can’t just judge past people by today’s standards,” Tristan tried the argument he and his clan used to reassure themselves. However, many clan members had been Deathwatch under his mother’s leadership.  
  
Sh’ehn pointed at another person, “That lady’s grandfather banged his slave, while married to his wife because that’s his right to do what he wanted with property. The wife and the slave both had daughters who were sisters, but one was a slave, so they made her her sister’s handmaid. Then the legitimate daughter got married, she took her slave sister with her to her new house. When she died, her husband started banging her slave sister. Kept her enslaved.”  
  
“Maybe they were affectionate,” Tristan realized they were pointing at his third cousin.  
  
“She was fourteen and he was forty-two,” Stabbi shut him down. “And since she was his slave, he could legally have drowned her and raped her corpse in the eye. There would have been no consequences for him. And we don’t know how long he was banging her before the wife died. It was his right to, at any time he wanted,” Goran reminded, “she could have been ten...or three. Those past laws didn’t care.”  
  
“Look, we can’t know what we would have done in the past. I’m not judging anyone unfairly and I can’t do anything to stop it, all involved are already dead,” it was new for Tristan to be around people who didn’t share his opinions.  
  
“But saying we should heroize and build monuments of celebration to a person who did that, because they did other stuff we liked, is dishonest. Isn’t there someone else?” Victory asked.  
  
“All you Rebellion types are so self-righteous,” Tristan asked. “My mother has done things she knows are wrong now. Aren’t those stories worth telling.”  
  
“Oh, yeaaaaaah. Redemption arcs make great stories. Maybe we should tell lots of those,” Stabbi nodded.  
  
Tristan noticed that the men laughed as if they were in on some kind of sarcastic joke. Like they believed what he’d just said was unsophisticated because his idea was not new. 

  


Mustafar  
  
Lord Vader was standing in front of a lava waterfall that flowed through the castle. It hissed here and there and randomly burst into flares of flame. The Sith Lord could feel no warmth. All of the nerves on his flesh had been singed to numbness. He gazed and his artificial respirator breathed. In one of his few remaining physical sensations, Vader’s cells flooded with oxygen. Every breath still made him feel as if he was struggling against suffocation.  
  
His figure was immobile, but the flicker of the lava light made the shadows move around him.  
  
The inquisitor entered sheepishly. Her blade was missing, he could sense it.  
  
Suddenly, her body was picked up and thrown against the wall. Then again. And again. And again. Faster than she thought possible than he could move, and the shadow of him was over her. Her throat constricted just enough to let her speak in a whisper, “My Lord, I can explain...” she cowered and gripped at her throat.  
  
“Did you kill the girl?” Vader asked in his unhurried intonation. He released her and she fell to the ground on all fours gasping for breath.  
  
“My Lord, she is being held prisoner by two old men. I think they were intending to use her. If she knows anything, she’ll be more talkative after she suffers. She’s just a runaway engulfed by a briar patch.”  
  
Vader thought of the story about the rabbit. “Your orders were to kill her. You failed."  
  
The inquisitor clutched her head in pain as if hearing an extremely unpleasant tone.   
  
"The man I seek will come to me. The girl’s mother has ties to Eriadu. I foresee a clue is there.”  
  
“Yes, my lord.” 

\--  
  
Eriadu  
  
The Inquisitor’s empty eye socket stared at the ceiling fan in the tiny apartment.  
  
Kallus and Rex looked at each other for a second and then both ran out the back door. They didn’t want to call the city police, who in fact worked directly for the Tarkin family. So they left Eriadu in all haste.  
  
The police reported the incident to Grand Moff Tarkin, who reprimanded Vader for operating on his home world without a heads up.  
  
Vader didn’t apologize. He wasn’t necessarily sorry to get his underling killed. There were no consequences to that for him. She hadn’t had what it took, so it was better to cull the herd. More where she came from. Still, it was interesting. It just proved her killer was the man he was seeking. Dead shot to the eye was his signature.  
  
Grand Moff Tarkin demanded to know what the incident was about.  
  
“Hunting Jedi is my purview,” Vader corrected him. “In this, the Emperor trusts me completely.”  
  
The matter was not resolved. It stood between them, this dispute about who had the most impunity. Each privately vowed to defeat the other on the matter in the end. 

Coruscant

  


The inquisitor’s body was returned to the Emperor, at his request. He kept it in his palace for a time, feeding off of the essence of the woman’s suffering. He would joyfully relive her abuse, both inflicted and received as he pulled the cooling memories from the desiccating cells in her dead mind. Inhaling them like a vapor from the corpse’s rotting stench. Then he fed on the living Force of the bacteria feeding on her tissue. Then he fed on the nothingness of what her wasted life had amounted to.  
  
He could feel nothing, physically, the lightning had scarred away all the nerves in his skin. So there was really no other way he could feel satisfied in his impulse to dominate besides inflicting abuse.  
  
In public, the Lord of the Sith played a frail old man, small and harmless. He had to find ways to keep his anger under control. There were more than enough people no one cared about. There was no one the Lord cared about.  
  
–  
  
The Seswenna Sector  
  
Kallus didn’t ask Rex any questions about his personal life, though he was curious. Their little side quest had almost gotten him killed, so it would have been nice to know a detail or two.  
  
For his part, Rex didn’t want to talk about it. The result had been worse than a dead end. He had left afraid for his old girlfriend, Lina, and her child. He still didn’t trust Alexsandr enough to open up to him so he left that lie. To speak about it opened too many wounds he didn’t want to show. He didn’t really care to hear Former ISB agent Kallus’ information on the conditions that Imperial prisoners were subjected to.  
  
On the way to their next destination, Kallus tortured Rex by watching the holo-novela. In the background of a few frames, Rex could see a familiar blue graffito. ‘Skywalker Lives’. He wasn’t sure what planet the thing was shot on, since it was all done on studios. Most of the actors looked very young, but Rex guessed everyone looked that way to him. The scripts tackled some surprisingly complicated social topics within the setting of fantasy.  
  
While Kallus got absorbed in the character interactions, Rex had time to think about that close call. “Is it weird that I feel a little proud that someone as powerful and terrible as Darth Vader thinks I’m worth killing?”  
  
Kallus looked up from the viewer, “From what I understood while he was on Lothal, Vader took the pursuit of Ahsoka Tano personally. He would often sit in meditation,” Kallus affected a deep voice in a whisper, “‘I found her, she’s here, she’s here, she’s here’.”  
  
This reminded Rex’s ego that he too might just be collateral damage. He told himself to stop having delusions of grandeur. Still, THE Captain Rex couldn’t help but rankle at the blow to his pride that Darth Vader wanted someone else dead more than him.  
  
Kallas paused his program and explained, “The more religious members of the Emperor’s circle were whispering that Tano could be key to unlocking the meaning of something called Mortis. It was well known among the high ranking Imperials that if you wanted to get closer to to top, you had to pretend to believe in the esoteric things that mattered to the Emperor, and he had certain spiritual beliefs that could be stoked with reassurance. He and Vader were obsessed with anything to do with such rubbish as control over time and reanimation of the dead. Immortality and the like.”  
  
“You don’t believe in the old stories? Of the powers the Sith had? The kinds of things the Jedi protected us from,” Rex did believe.  
  
“I was brought up with the state religion, pledging loyalty every morning, celebrating the Emperor’s birthday and all that. I started to doubt my faith because I could see my orientation was not accepted. In the propaganda, we were called unnatural. I thought the state should become more secularized so that wouldn’t matter. Rational science could explain to people that it was normal.  
  
Rex didn’t like how Kallus seemed to think belief in things was automatically stupid. Kenobi had told him those tales in all sincerity. And Kenobi was the smartest guy Rex had ever known. Some people didn’t think it was relevant, what happened thousands of years ago, but Rex had always been hard pressed to identify what had been more useful in his decision making than the things Kenobi had taught him by giving him examples from old stories. Kenobi had left it up to Rex how to interpret them.  
  
“The ancient Sith had superior technology to those they conquered, for certain, that can look like magic or eternal health to the uneducated. But as for an actual Force, I don’t believe there is any evidence that can’t be explained away,” Kallus was polite at least, in his disbelief.  
  
“So you’re not afraid of someone like Vader?” Rex posed.  
  
“I wasn’t afraid of Jedi either, once I found them. Capturing them was a boon to one’s career. And Vader wasn’t so frightening to me since I was on his side. He knew some parlor tricks, but most people were more in awe of his ability to choke people to death and never face any consequences from the government than his connection to a supposed ‘Force’.”  
  
Rex didn’t see how you could separate the two. “So you’ve seen him for real?” Rex had not, but this was the man who had taken Ahsoka. Rex was sure he’d recognize such a vile creature easily.  
  
“He’s hard to miss. They used to say you could almost feel his arrival before seeing him, like an eclipse moving over the sun. Or like a stench, but not that you could smell. I observed, it was more about reactions, you could hear everyone grow quiet down the hall, well before he passed. He inspired the kind of fear that makes you mistake it for charisma.”  
  
“I’ve known people like that,” Rex understood the metaphor easily as a specific sensation, which he associated with a strong Force presence of certain kinds of people.  
  
“You actually served with hundreds of Force wielders,” Kallus remembered.  
  
“I personally knew maybe a thousand,” Rex shrugged.  
  
“Was it as strange as they say? The Imperial history classes of course remember the time with peculiar horror about how absurd and backwards people had been in the past. And we all got to nod and say, ‘But everybody knows the truth. The Empire is right.’”  
  
“I believe they test marketed those educational protocols on us back under the Republic,” Rex chuckled. But he wasn’t joking.  
  
“So I take it you are still a religious man, Rex?” Aleksandr asked.  
  
“I never called it that. More, a way of looking at the universe that grants me a code that I want to hold myself to. If I fail, then I admit that I failed and I think about why. I don’t modify the code to suit what I want or need to do,” Rex explained.  
  
“But what if you learn something contrary to your code? Can you change your point of view?” Kallus posed.  
  
“I do. Of course I can, my education and training prepared me for that. Having a code at least forces me to ask questions before making any change. I hold myself accountable even if other people don’t,” Rex tried to clarify it. He didn’t used to have to. People never used to ask him many questions. He thought of his brother Cut for a moment.  
  
“What keeps you to the code,” Kallus asked.  
  
“Nothing but faith in what constructs it. Brotherhood, respect, for instance are principles. I take responsibility for my part in making the galaxy a better or worse place. It is a go to for making decisions,” Rex shrugged.  
  
“Just sounds like morality,” Kallus chuckled, but he was not joking.  
  
“I don’t see what’s wrong with it. Now, just because you don’t have a compass doesn’t mean you can’t find your way, but I think it’s easier with a tool, so why not use it?” 

  


–  
Felucia  
  
“So did he ever tell you anyone else he was after? I mean, I know he probably didn’t mention me specifically,” Rex asked later, when they stopped off for a beverage looking for their first contact. Rex didn’t want to seem too eager, but this was his first big enemy crush. He couldn’t wait to tell Kanan who was after him.  
  
“Darth Vader? As far as I saw on Lothal, he was just Tarkin’s pet. That way Grand Moff Huffy didn’t have to get his ill-fitting boots dirty,” Kallus explained.  
  
“Really? But I’ve met Tarkin, he doesn’t have Force powers. Why would Vader submit to that?” Rex was astonished. From what he’d heard, Darth Vader was the first Sith lord in something like a thousand years who was confident enough in his power to be open about his identity. He had nothing to fear with the Jedi gone, he had no rival. It was a complete reversal of what had been recognized as normal before. The Sith had hidden themselves for generations while the Jedi were an active branch of government. The dark Force wielders that Rex had seen during his lifetime were greedy about power, it sounded funny to hear of one working for someone else.  
  
“I don’t know what Tarkin had over him. Vader only called the Emperor his master, so perhaps it was a governmental check and balance that kept him from snapping Tarkin’s neck,” Kallas didn’t seem to be joking.  
  
Rex balked at the image of a Sith constrained by officialdom. He drew a sketch on his beer mat of Darth Vader filling out bureaucratic forms. This time he did joke, “Control is a talent that can be honed with skill. Maybe Darth Vader has learned enough self-control over his Sith powers to keep his Force chokings down to one per week to meet risk management quotas.”  
  
Kallas suddenly looked sick, remembering something. “He ordered me to burn a refugee camp and I did, most of the people ran off, but some did die. I was complicit in the assassination of Governor Tua, I spied on her, reported her to Vader and it got her killed,” Kallus was trembling. He put his drinking cup down.  
  
Rex’s expression was an involuntary reaction. It was horrified. Rex cleared his throat and took a swig of his drink.  
  
Then he took a breath, “You know my first posting was on Christophsis. I had a brother there, Slick his name was. He gave away secrets to our enemy. Got a lot of our brothers killed. When he had to be executed, I was in favor of it because I couldn’t imagine what a person could do that was worse than that. But I didn’t have to do the execution, so it wasn’t really up to me. Made it easier to have an opinion. Later on, I almost executed a dangerous prisoner. I was going to shoot him in the back of the head. It was my clear duty, so I had to do it. This guy had committed atrocities and he vowed to go on doing so. I never felt in my whole life so much like I had no other choice. But I found in that moment, I just couldn’t. My fingers wouldn’t obey. I didn’t want that. I would have rather died than lived with myself after. The decision ultimately was taken out of my hands, but I don’t ever want to forget the feeling.”  
  
Kallus sniffled. His eyes grew red. The tears fell. He braced himself against the table, “I did those things, Rex. I didn’t even hesitate. Right now, I can’t even imagine what must have possessed me...” he sobbed. “I called him, ‘My Lord’.” He sobbed again. “Can you imagine how perverse that was? I didn’t question it.”  
  
“You can’t undo it, Alexsandr. None of us can. If you know what it is like to be ashamed of bad things, then you should remember that. All of us should. Call it what you want, wisdom, a code, a calling, a visceral rejection, I believe it means we have a duty to not do things that feel wrong. Or, if we choose to do them, figure out why. It’s good you know that now,” Rex took a sip, knowing Kallus probably woke up at night haunted by memories of screams and burning flesh.  
  
Kallus nodded and recovered, wiping his nose with the back of his glove, “Thank goodness for Zeb. Every time I feel like I just can’t live with myself anymore, I look at him and I know he sees me. Who I am now. It’s a gift, really.”  
  
Rex tried not to be too envious. It felt like people he had dared to grow attached to were ripped away from him like he was cursed.  
  
Then he felt like a stone had formed in the pit of his stomach. He realized that he still should go and deal with the Wolffe situation. His brother and loyal companion of seventeen years was probably still holding it against him that he’d just up and left. Rex knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant because Wolffe would refuse to make it so.  
  
Rex found he was sorry that he would never have Wolffe look at him like he used to. Wolffe had always been there to remind him that he was THE Captain Rex. Had always looked at him like he was his hero. Rex knew that now, behind Wolffe’s eye, he was always going to see that hurt.  
  
Suddenly, there was a commotion at the next cantina.  
  
“And stay out!” someone yelled from inside.  
  
An Ugnaught burst through the door of the cantina as if thrown. Next, a long in the horns Weequay was kicked down the stairs.  
  
Rex stood up and recognized them as the men he was looking for, “OY! Hondo! Melch! What are you doing on the ground?”  
  
The Weequay stood and brushed himself off. He saw Rex and rolled his eyes, “When will you boys leave me alone?”  
  
“What’s the matter Hondo?” Rex shouted.  
  
“I seem to have lost my ship. They accused me of cheating at gambling. Nasty business.”   
  
Cards fell from Hondo’s sleeves. He looked around, grabbed Melch, and ran over to where Rex and Kallus were sitting. The bouncer emerged from the cantina and looked around to make sure Hondo had scrammed.  
  
“Oh, it’s YOU Rex!” Hondo looked at him up close through his goggles when he got to the table. Hondo of course could recognize a clone at fifty paces, he had known Jango Fett for kark’s sake. But he had trouble telling the sons apart sometimes. “So nice to see you, Rex! You are the nicest clone I know. Who is your pretty date?” Hondo asked, looking at Kallus.  
  
“Who says we’re on a date?” Kallus asked, sounding a little offended.  
  
Rex didn’t know if Kallus was acting on a reflex to be straight acting when first meeting a person, or whether he should take it personally that Kallus thought he was out of Rex’s league.  
  
Rex shook off Hondo’s shenanigans, he was just an attention seeker looking to make people uncomfortable, “I have a message for you.”  
  
“Is it an offer?” Hondo rubbed his thumb against his fingertips.  
  
“Hera asked us to tell you that we’re recruiting,” Kallus said in his threatening voice.  
  
“You know what motivates me. Currency. And little Ezra! Of course. Knowing him has always been very...lucrative,” Hondo told them.   
  
Melch squealed about how many of his people had been killed.  
  
“You don’t say,” Rex nodded. Rex poured them each a drink from his pitcher of ale.  
  
“You are so polite, Rex. You tell Corky I didn’t mean to offend him with the jokes,” Hondo was visibly drunk already.  
  
Rex knew Hondo was one of those people who assumed all clones knew each other. Rex didn’t know any Corky, but it had been a big army.  
  
Hondo, who knew the names of (and had grudges against) all of his own relatives, changed the subject, “So it was a shame about Kanan, huh?”  
  
Rex felt like the world went silent.  
  
\--  
  
The four of them marched back to the Ghost double time. Rex switched on to the public holo-net channel on the com system. They sat around the little table in silence to hear the report announcing Kanan Jarrus’ death in an explosion on Lothal. Governor Pryce was basking in the credit. The destruction of a Jedi was the Holy Grail of Imperial heroism. She was claiming that this would put an end to resistance on Lothal for good. She acted like she was auditioning for a future as a holo-net pundit. No update on who else had been killed or captured.  
  
Rex put his head in his hands and quietly whispered, “Hera.”  
  
–  
  
Rex told Kallus not to take his eyes off the two slippery bastards. He pointed at Hondo, “This guy so much as flinches, you have my permission to go ISB on him.”  
  
“Got it,” Kallus smiled and picked up Rex’s pry bar from his messenger bag.  
  
Rex went to the bridge to use the com. 

–  
Alderaan

  


Bail Organa waited for news. Leia had demanded to go on another one of her ‘relief missions’. They almost always involved carrying messages and money for the Rebellion. He didn’t mind her staying out of the more dangerous things he did. Senator Organa himself had run Seaparatist blockades and involved himself in back channel diplomacy during the war. So he could hardly scold her when she involved herself in disaster relief.  
  
She wouldn’t hear of protecting her own safety when there were things she could do. He was her father, it was his job to protect her, she seemed to revel in putting herself in danger just to spite him. He caught her with a death stick the other day. She didn’t even look guilty, just defiant. When he took them away, she had treated him like he’d committed the offense.  
  
Leia’s birth father had been a brutally moody teenager. Organa recalled that Master Kenobi occasionally looked run down when facing his sulkiness. Raising a nearly omnipotent being and to try to enforce discipline was a delicate job. The man could have had his rib cage crushed in a second. Somehow, though, he had managed. It took some unimaginably strong composure to pull off what Obi-Wan did, to show no fear to that boy, ever. Obi-Wan just held his ground and stared him down.  
  
Leia had much less power at her age, yet was infinitely more willful in her contentions. Maybe it was what they were teaching her, building the rebellion in their palace. Mon Mothma, Ahsoka Tano, Queen Breha. These were her role models.  
  
Bail’s own brooding was interrupted by a chirp on his private comlink. He scrambled the signal and decoded it. THE Captain Rex appeared in hologram form.  
  
“Sir, I know what you’re gonna say, I’m sorry I didn’t check in, I had some private business to attend to,” he tried to excuse himself honestly, without being too specific. His superiors hadn’t disrespected him by distrusting him.  
  
“Rex, I have been hearing disturbing rumors about the Inquisitors’ Squadron operating in the sector. Do you know what that is?” Senator Organa warned.  
  
Rex didn’t mention the scrape they’d just had. He didn’t want to worry his friend. “Sure,” now he did, “You know I wouldn’t tell anyone anything if they catch me. Skywalker gave me extensive training at keeping my mind safe from Force torture. Besides, I honestly don’t know where Ahsoka is, the safest thing is always to have nothing to tell.”  
  
Organa was slightly exasperated with Rex’s stubborn bravery, “I know you were trained, but not everyone was. If you’re caught by one of them, you may not be alone and they are known for torturing others as a tactic to get people to talk. You don’t want someone else’s mind scrambled like eggs.”  
  
Rex bet Organa and his entire family had been formally trained to resist torture. They would have to have been to keep their secrets this long, while enduring close contact with Palpatine’s agents. Rex had never minded the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ leadership method. It just meant the guy was worried about him.  
  
Rex thought of Kallus. He assumed any former ISB agent had similar skills. “My only contacts left are a few of my brothers. I think they can more than handle themselves,” Rex reassured him. The stone in his stomach returned. Not because Wolffe would ever tell anyone anything, but Rex realized it would be his fault if anything happened to him and Gregor.  
  
“I hear we are losing you to Bridger’s mission,” Organa sounded sad.  
  
“Well, the Ghost crew is like family to me. Ahsoka wanted me to take care of them,” Rex hoped Organa didn’t take it personally. This was just what Rex’s heart had told him to do.  
  
“We hope you come back, I hate to lose you,” Bail heard a chirp on another com channel. It was a message from Leia’s guard.  
  
“I think so. I hope. But Hera needs all the help she can get now,” Rex found that knowing that he was helping her did something to alleviate his guilt about the loss of his friend Kanan.  
  
Organa laughed knowingly for some reason, “Good luck, my friend. May the Force be with you.”  
  
Rex didn’t respond more than a small nod, or more, bowing of his head in thanks. He didn’t bow very low, though. Then Rex switched off his com.  
  
–  
  
Senator Organa received his daughter at the entrance to the palace, she was covered in mud and wrapped in a foil blanket. Her guards and she had insisted to tour landslide damage on Teth. While they were there, another earthquake had caused more slides. Leia had refused to be evacuated when her guards tried to force her. She had just yelled at them to shut up and help. Most people were evacuated to safer ground thanks to his daughter’s bravery.  
  
Leia sensed her father’s arrival and looked up to face him. Her father’s look was not one of anger, but one of concern. Then, she found him clutching her to his chest. His tears slowly leaked through her generous hair. She laughed herself through tears at his maudlin display.  
  
“When I heard, I feared the worst,” Leia’s father kissed her head. “I can’t stay mad because I’m just so proud of you.”  
  
Leia let the tears come, but smirked and returned his display with one of her own, “I learned it by watching you.”  
  
\-- 

Hondo poked his head in to the bridge, “So...you mind if I have a smoke in here?”  
  
“You absolutely may not. This is a living space,” Rex scolded.  
  
Hondo muttered something about how it was going to be a long trip with ‘Chuckles’. At least Corky let him smoke.  
  
–  
  
Rex and Kallus took turns guarding their companions. During Rex’s shift, Kallus went to go sleep in Zeb’s room. Kallus looked showered and freshly attired when he came to take his shift. Rex noticed he seemed to have changes of clothes already there in Zeb’s drawers.  
  
Rex had never felt at home enough to settle in to a place, although he knew some of his brothers had done it. Back during the war, it had been illegal for clones to have romantic relationships with natural born people. Being open about it could get a brother jailed. When Rex had fallen in love, he remembered how hard it was to have to hide it.  
  
Kanan had told Rex he could use his room, since Kanan was barely sleeping there himself. He and Hera had both been in her quarters for months leading up to the Lothal mission. The Ghost had been becoming downright domestic.  
  
It pissed Rex off that just as his dear friend who dared to hope for a little happiness for himself, just got it all ripped away. And he was dead. He wouldn’t have any of the burden of figuring out how to go on without him. It just wasn’t fair.  
  
Rex grew emotional, looking over the personal affects of his friend, who was dead. Probably the last Jedi Rex would ever know. Ezra might become one someday, but without a master to train him, it was looking unlikely.  
  
Rex found the place resonated with an energy he recognized. He sat on the floor and meditated.  
  
One image returned to his mind’s eye, over and over, like an irritation from a microscopic piece of debris. An endless desert, an endless sky. It could have been a million worlds. Abafar, Tatooine, Mandalore….Seelos. Rex was sure his guilt was catching up with him.  
  
\--  
  
Before he went to sleep, Rex perused the news on his datapad. The Mandalore unrest continued. The Empire was sending a clear message that they were going to be the ones to decide who would govern. Rex knew the violence would go on.  
  
He thought of Alis. He had no leads. His search for her mother had hit a dead end. Now he was off to what would probably be a suicide mission to Lothal. He couldn’t help but feel like he failed her.  
  
As Rex closed his eyes and rested on the scratchy bachelor sheets. For a brief moment he fancied he saw shattered bits of blue glass hovering before his eyes. They seemed to be watching him, curious about his presence, chattering excitedly in some language Rex couldn’t understand. Like a scrambled frequency.  
  
–  
  
Like an eyelid opening, Rex found himself in a world covered all around with dust so light and fine it was like...snow. He was on Rothana, in the ruin of the clone prison. Though he needed no snow armor. Rex understood he was not really dreaming, but that he was being shown something. The streetlights flickered an eerie blue. Rex heard him before he heard the crunch of footsteps on snow. There was a tingle that registered within Rex as a high pitched whistle, something like a variety of death rattle Rex had heard before. Rex felt as if he was hovering above the streets as he saw a shadow move from left to right. A tall dark figure stalking through the streets, a formation of Stormtroopers in tow. As if from the tension in his robotic steps, you could feel the rage rising.  
  
Suddenly, Rex was overwhelmed with images. Brightly colored chalk on one dark wall after another. The messages seemed to glow in the dark. “They tortured us here!” “The Empire enslaved us!” “He came to save us!” “Praise Him!” “Skywalker Lives.” Vader ordered his men to destroy the messages, but he could not obliterate them all. Rex had seen some for himself.  
  
Rex was sure this was the man who had murdered Anakin, his friend.  
  
–  
  
When Rex woke, he made caf for Hondo and Melch and looked over the holo-net on his datapad. Hondo attempted to see what he was doing a few times, but Rex managed to get the message across that he would like a little privacy.  
  
Apparently, Skywalker sightings had become popular fodder for conspiracy theories and tabloids. Rothana was an oft cited source of evidence, but any belief in such a story was looked upon as marking a person as ignorant and uneducated.  
  
After Fives, Rex knew how easy it was to silence inconvenient ‘theories’ as the ravings of madmen. Too often, such people found silence at the end of a blaster. Or a red blade.  
  
Rex found himself thinking of Maul for some reason. The first Sith in a thousand years that tried to go public. Before he even had the chance to declare himself out loud as the conqueror of Naboo, he was bisected by Kenobi.  
  
The guy had lived, but he’d never been near as powerful as before. Rumor had it that he had kept himself alive out of sheer focused desire for revenge.  
  
For a long time, Rex had wondered about who had killed his friend General Skywalker. He wondered if someone as powerful as Skywalker wasn’t also capable of surviving severe trauma. No one had ever talked about seeing a body. If Grievous could be salvaged from only a brain and a heart, Rex wondered if there wasn’t a way that Skywalker could have survived as Maul had, not out of hatred, but out of resilience.  
  
Rex realized how improbable it sounded, so he never dared tell anyone. Still, if you’d told Rex that Skywalker had survived, he would have gone out of his way to join whatever cause the General supported. If anyone could show that Darth Vader guy a thing or two, it was Anakin Skywalker.  
  
–  
  
“You sure we can’t smoke in here?” Hondo asked. “Melch is getting jittery.”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Rex offered Melch some blue milk for his caf.  
  
“Well then what are we supposed to do the rest of the trip?” Hondo asked. He was being as impatient as a child.  
  
Rex set them up with the holo-novela, so he got to listen to their running commentary of what they thought the kids should do instead of what they did on the show.

  


–  
  
Rex sent a message to Hera on Lothal in a simple code, “I have obeyed your orders to the letter and have succeeded in every objective. I heard the bad news. I’m always here if you need me. Going to meet up with family. Contact me there when you need a pickup.”  
  
–

  


Ketsu was on the holo-com of the dash of the Ghost. “I’ll meet you once you send me the coordinates.”  
  
“Will do,” Rex had made the plan to meet on Seelos, but he didn’t want everyone to arrive before he got everything settled. He was sort of embarrassed that his personal life was getting in the way of the mission. So he just didn’t mention it.  
  
When they emerged from hyperspace in the Seelos system, Kallas recognized the location.  
  
“So we’re going to see your brothers? Are you sure I shouldn’t opt out of this part. I was trying to kill you all the last time I was here,” Kallus looked unsure.  
  
They scanned the planet for Wolffe’s signature. Rex found him and Gregor’s walker.  
  
“Um...I don’t think I should come out first,” Kallus fretted.  
  
Rex still wasn’t sure how he was going to explain his friendship.  
  
“We’re not going to see Corky, are we? Because seriously, that thing about his wife...I was just joking, but I think he might want me dead. It’s like you can’t joke about anything anymore.” Hondo saw the clones from a distance from the viewport.  
  
“No. Let me handle it. You guys can come out after I talk to them,” Rex advised.


	3. A Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seelos is not a safe place for anyone

The Reserve, Salt Flats, Seelos  
  
Wolffe was taking a break and talking while watching Alis and Gregor lash together the cables that were holding the guns to the top of the walker. His back had seized up, a little and he was trying to cover for the pain by pretending to have a look around. The salvaged guns weren’t hooked up to the interior of the walker, so they couldn’t be aimed or fired from inside. They were just dead weight. Over sandy terrain, it was going to be slow going. All the quiet made Wolffe nervous. So to cover for that he continued talking while the others worked.  
  
“So all I’m saying is, it wasn’t the street rat’s fault, he’s a dumbass. He’s got limited experiences and no education, so his imagination is limited. He wishes to be a prince, but it is totally up to the demon servant what that means. Street rat doesn’t know what a prince is supposed to be. Demon servant gives him a lot of swag and no substance. A poor guy’s idea of how a rich guy lives. But I have to ask, does this thing have phenomenal cosmic powers or not? It could have given him a real kingdom and royal parents in fact. He could have given him enough power to threaten the princess’ sultanate that she would have gladly married him to save her people from genocide. You can say, oh well, maybe the demon has a better moral code than that, but I say he wouldn’t. With that kind of power, I guarantee you his moral compass is different than ours. Ergo, this being is a fraud. He is either tricking this kid, or he doesn’t have as much pull on the strings as he claims,” Wolffe ranted. “Lazy world building, you ask me. The original story is way more messed up, though.”  
  
Alis laughed, “I guess I never thought about it like that. I haven’t seen that holo-vid since I was a kid. So much of your childhood you don’t question at the time.”  
  
Wolffe shrugged, “People raised us, and people...are people. Capable of telling us things that are ambiguous, or making choices that they haven’t thought through.”  
  
“Or choices that don’t hold up well over time. You know, my mother was the same age I am now when she had me. I’m not really sure how she ended up getting together with my father. Her mother was dead and she was on her own. I get the distinct feeling that my parents never really liked each other all that much. They never touched much or smiled at each other. Might have just been appropriate or convenient. Back in the village she was born in, marriage was just a financial transaction,” Alis sort of thought aloud. “I used to wonder if she went to prison to get away from me. I was very small, so I didn’t really have rational thoughts, just fears. I felt like maybe she hadn’t really wanted me, you know? Since I just reminded her of my dad.”  
  
“Where is he?” Gregor asked.  
  
“Probably still on Coruscant. He signed me over as a ward of the state when my mom went to prison. He could have kept me. But he had never acted like he wanted me. Not that I can remember. Mommy loved me. It was my mom who took me everywhere with her.”  
  
“Well, what kind of a man is that? That gives his own child away!” Gregor sounded outraged. Wolffe wondered how he could feel that way, since Gregor had never been a father and had never had one that he could remember.  
  
Wolffe hadn’t realized Gregor was listening, “How can you judge? Any type of people can end up fathers. Uh, maybe you remember, maybe you don’t, Gregor…but our father sold off millions of blood cells to another party to be turned into a slave army of what were arguably his children. This wasn’t some drunken mistake, he went in knowing that.”  
  
“Why is everything about you? She is trying to tell a story, have some respect,” Gregor reprimanded.  
  
Wolffe sighed, but he shut up and got back to work helping.  
  
“Alright, I got this one here, three hooks left on the straps and that should keep them stationary. At least if there’s no wind. A sandstorm comes up, we may have to dump them,” Wolffe directed.  
  
“Oooooooh!” Gregor groaned.  
  
“No way! I will climb out here myself to stabilize them if I have to. It took forever to get them up here, I’m not doing that again,” Alis grumbled. She was sounding stubborn just like a proper soldier.  
  
“Good, you can borrow my helmet, it’s got a good filter,” Wolffe offered, “You’ll need it when you get picked up in a whirlwind and blown straight to Palpatown with the one good restaurant.” He had said it sarcastically, which any good soldier who served under a clone commander knew to mean they were making a common rookie mistake of risking lives unnecessarily. Wolffe hoped he didn’t sound condescending. “It’s safer to dump them. We can try to get them back on later.”  
  
Alis responded deadpan with what was an obvious joke, “There’s a good restaurant?”  
  
“If she wants to go, let her,” Gregor swatted.  
  
Wolffe had absolutely no idea how Gregor had meant that.  
  
–  
  
They got underway once the sun was up. Wolffe was at the com station, scanning for slave traders. Gregor had a smoke, got tired and went for a nap. Alis was driving. She didn’t take her view off the viewport, but Wolffe somehow felt the tension before she said anything.  
  
“I think I’d like to at least try to find my mother when it’s possible. That’s what I was trying to say before you went off on that tirade about wishes and demon servants,” Alis finally got to her point. “Unless you guys have something better you want to do, we could all go. What’s on Seelos, anyway?”  
  
“What if Rex comes looking for us?” Wolffe protested.  
  
“I’m sure we can leave him the message somehow. He’ll follow us if he knows we’re looking for my mom. The Rebellion won’t matter. He wanted to find her, too. We could get them together,” Alis was sounding tired. It had been a rough time, they were filthy and sweaty and desperate all the time. They’d had to work hard and there was just no end to it.  
  
Seelos was no safe place for anybody.  
  
“That’s sweet,” Gregor stirred in his chair, but didn’t open his eyes. He started to hum the ‘I want’ song from an animated holo-vid about a princess and a shape-shifting witch.  
  
Wolffe was privately certain that Alis really wanted a family and a home, and that Rex was not the person who could give it to her. It made his stomach feel queasy for some reason, the way it did when he knew he was going to do something that he wasn’t quite sure was right, but that wasn’t going to stop him.  
  
“So where are we going to sell the guns?” Alis asked.  
  
“Well, K-Town would have been an idea, that’s where most off worlders are. You got to broker the deal for the pickup to take place somewhere else, since the police will confiscate any guns they find. K-Town was a place to get in contact.”  
  
“Okay….” Alis realized why this was a problem.  
  
Wolffe winked, “But K-Town is toast, so….”  
  
“What happened to K-town?” Gregor asked, really not remembering.  
  
“If he goes anywhere near K-Town, Mahti will kill him,” Alis told Gregor.  
  
“Which means he can’t wait to get there!” Gregor burst out.  
  
“Why, does he have some kind of masochistic fetish?” Alis joked.  
  
Wolffe looked nervous for a second.  
  
“That’s what the whores say,” Gregor informed them.  
  
Alis thought it was funny banter and laughed.  
  
In his nervousness, Wolffe tried to turn it into a teaching moment, “Why is everyone so damned interested in my personal life? Anyway, what’s wrong with being slapped around? It makes me feel like somebody cares. Which is a...perfectly...healthy thing to feel...right?”  
  
Alis looked horrified.  
  
Wolffe was happy she didn’t think so. He wouldn’t wish his unhealthy appetites on anybody. He looked at her sidelong, exaggeratedly.  
  
Then after a moment, she laughed. “Oh man, I thought you were being serious.”  
  
“I mean, kink is one thing, but if somebody really is capable of being angry enough to really try and hurt you, they’re not saying they love you, they’re saying their anger is more important to them than your safety,” Wolffe said. He was trying to be instructive, since he thought Alis might appreciate someone acting paternal. Then he realized, most men talked ‘instructively’ to most women like that all the time. So he changed the subject, “So...did you have anyone special...back on your homeworld?” The one that had just been subjected to a genocide….Wolffe cringed internally.  
  
Alis didn’t seem aware of how inappropriate the question was and just answered it. The reality still hadn’t settled in, perhaps, “No. I mean, I was dormed at the cadet academy and we all couldn’t get away from each other. You can imagine my dating pool, Mando nobility,” Alis shrugged, “I’ve had a few bad experiences, so I’m not sure about how much I actually want of interpersonal contact for now.”  
  
“Well, I would try and give you a The Talk, but you’re probably more up to date on things than I am. There are new trends or whatever. I’m an old man, so all I have are opinions.”  
  
Gregor laughed, “No, thank you.”  
  
\--  
Gregor returned from the fridge with his water bottle.  
  
He found Alis at the walker controls and stopped dead. “You’re not Wolffe.”  
  
Gregor would often forget about her existence throughout the day. Often within minutes. Sometimes he could concentrate for longer, but as soon as he looked away from her, he forgot everything about her. She was someone different every time he saw her.  
  
Like most people with dementia issues, Gregor covered it more often than not. Either by keeping quiet or only putting in a little something now and again. Like being stuck in a room full of people speaking animatedly in a language he didn’t speak, struggling to extract some meaning from their gestures or their faces. He would drift in and out of conversations like that. He hadn’t met a version of the girl yet that he didn’t like, though.  
  
“I’m not?” she feigned surprise. “What gave me away?”  
  
Gregor didn’t mind the joke, “Hmmmm, maybe it was the blessed silence.” He sat down in his usual chair next to her.  
  
She laughed, “Thaaaaat must be it.”  
  
“So wait, don’t I know you from somewhere?” Gregor was having a good morning.  
  
“Maybe. Or maybe you’re thinking of my mom. People mix us up all the time,” Alis was definitely joking. She had longed to joke about such normal things. Gregor allowed her that outlet. He didn’t care one way or another.  
  
Alis hadn’t seen her mother in fifteen years. Her memory of her mother’s face had dulled in her mind’s eye over time. Until she reached closer to the age her mother had been when Alis had lived with her. Then Alis had to watch herself slowly become her mother in the mirror.  
  
The encounter with that inquisitor had affected her. In those mere moments of Force torture, as that woman slowly drained the life and spirit from her, Alis had had visions. Not of her life flashing before her eyes. But memories were recalled of what would cause her the most pain. Her heart’s life was being played for her in excruciating detail. She was certain that if it hadn’t been stopped, she would have died that way.  
  
For some reason, having been through it had given her new resolve. She found that the idea of her mother being dead didn’t bother her like it did before. Before, she could never accept even the slightest suggestion. Her foster family had tried gently a few times, but Alis had insisted on telling them that if her mother ever returned, she needed to be released of her clan duties. They had humored her with reassurances. Now, she found the idea of having to let her mother go was not as frightening as it had been before. She was not afraid.  
  
“Oh yeah, her. How is she?” Gregor asked.  
  
Alis figured this was one of Gregor’s conversational covers, pretending he remembered something he thought he should.  
  
So she joked back. She affected a jangy sounding accent, “Dead.” It was the first time she’d ever said it, even as a joke. As was clone custom, neither Alis nor Gregor made a big deal out of it. So many clones had died and with such frequency during the war that their culture couldn’t afford to take the time for emotional reactions to that news. They mourned in other ways.  
  
“How?” Gregor asked.  
  
“I don’t know. How does the Empire kill anyone? Probably by neglect,” Alis remembered her own time in the Imperial system, "Or cruelty."  
  
Then Gregor did something surprising, yet not. He patted his hand on the back of her shoulder twice briefly. “Ah, she loved you, though.”  
  
Alis knew Gregor was probably still covering. Telling her what she wanted to hear as a pleasantry in an awkward situation. But somehow, she didn’t care. She was free to react sincerely, with no more fear of seeming too emotional or acting against her good Mandalorian upbringing. She knew Gregor wouldn’t care either.  
  
She let some tears flow. Gregor handed her a rag to wipe her eyes.  
  
“Thanks, Uncle,” she used it.  
  
–  
  
They walker came to a halt.  
  
“What’s wrong?” Wolffe shouted his way down the ladder from his sleeping area.  
  
Gregor was at the dash panel, “Looks overheated. The extra weight must be overloading it. We’ll have to sit here for a bit.”  
  
“That’s not good,” Wolffe looked at the com equipment to identify their position.  
  
“Why?” Alis asked. “What’s the matter with here?”  
  
“Joopa nesting grounds. They get downright vicious defending their nests. We’re not exactly at our most maneuverable. If they attack us, Declan here,” Wolffe tapped the walker’s wall with his knuckle, like it was a little ritual whenever he mentioned it by name, “he’s more topheavy than usual. We could topple. We’re sitting ducks.”  
  
“Why would they need to attack us?” Alis asked.  
  
“Well, generally, they like food that gives them less trouble, but these nesting females haven’t had a feed in a bit,” Wolffe put a rifle on his back with a strap. “Gregor come with me.”  
  
“Where are you going?” Alis remained at the controls.  
  
“We’ll man the guns up top. If anything comes near us, we’ll take it out,” Wolffe pointed at Alis, “You open the vents and get it as cool as possible. The instant that light there,” he pointed, “turns green, punch it. I mean...not punch it right away, ‘cause then you’ll overheat it again right away. I mean like...”  
  
“With finesse. I know,” she nodded and flicked the switches for the vents.  
  
“Good, ad’ika,” Wolffe did his most provincial Mando’a accent. Like some of his old academy trainers.  
  
“So what should I do until then? Just man the head guns?” she tried.  
  
“Noooooooo!” they both said simultaneously.  
  
“With her aim, she’d be liable to hit us even though we’ll be positioned behind her,” Gregor grumbled.  
  
“You never remember who she is, but you never forget how to criticize her,” Wolffe carped back. “She’s trying.”  
  
“Stop trying to impress her, a guy like you’s got no chance with her,” Gregor smacked his arm.  
  
Wolffe wiggled at the mangled head port, “First of all, you ARE me, and second of all,” the hatch popped open and he stumbled awkardly, catching himself against Gregor. “Second of all...”  
  
The ground began to rumble unsettlingly.  
  
“Okay. On second thought,” Gregor scrambled up the ladder and yelled back at Alis, “Shoot anything that moves.”  
  
Wolffe followed, “But, you know,” he chopped his hand towards the head portal.  
  
Alis turned to see a swarm of joopa headed for them.  
  
“Shoot that way,” Wolffe slammed the hatch shut behind him.  
  
Alis got behind the lower guns and waited for the creatures to emerge from under the stony ground. She didn’t have time to think about it, she just let her training take over. She blinked slowly, took a breath and began firing.  
  
Suddenly, a single creature appeared and stood vertically, waving its arms. Then another. And another. Blaster fire rained down from above. Many in the first wave were brought down. But hundreds followed. They were slow moving from being half starved, but they hissed terribly.  
  
Alis fired and quickly glanced over at the controls. Fifty percent of the way cool enough.  
  
Several got past them and made their ways to the walker legs, writhing, attacking, biting.  
  
Still, the walker didn’t even tremble.  
  
Alis glanced at the controls again, “That wasn’t so bad.” Then the rumble swelled from below. The walker lurched.  
  
The head hatch flopped open. Gregor and Wolffe were being thrown about a bit, trying to hold on to the rigging holding the guns on. Their aim was thrown off, blaster bolts were going off in every direction.  
  
“How is the temperature?” Wolffe screamed.  
  
“Eighty percent!” Alis screamed back.  
  
“We need forward momentum or we’ll topple, switch on the steering and throw it into gear as it begins to coast downhill,” Wolffe shouted.  
  
Alis could see a vast, bowl shaped depression lay in front of them. “Right!” Alis shot at the creatures in front of the walker and looked at the brake. It was a little far to reach. She kicked a leg up and hit it with her foot. Then she blasted at the creatures right in front to clear the path.  
  
The walker lurched again. This time back, then forward. Alis got thrown out of the chair. She heard Gregor and Wolffe shouting above. Neither one seemed to have fallen, since they were expecting the motion. They’d hung on to the rigging.  
  
Alis scrambled to get to the steering. She checked the temperature. Ninety percent cool. She grabbed the steering and guided the walker into a coasting trot down, stepping on a few joopa on the way, she could feel as a foot hit the ground soft. But because of the forward momentum, it would bump, lurch again, and then land with the next foot. It picked up speed. The mechanisms were fanned with the air of their motion. Alis put her hand on the gear, waited to sense just the right vibration rise from the walker engine, then she softly moved the shifter into gear as smoothly as water over a round stone. The walker stepped and roared to life. Then she accelerated slowly and built to a small gallop down into the depression.  
  
“Isn’t this a bad idea?” Alis shouted.  
  
“We needed the incline to get it moving again, I didn’t say that was the direction we wanted to go in. We need to turn back and go around, three clicks easterly direction. Whatever you do, don’t break stride, we need the speed to get back out of the depression!” Wolffe ordered.  
  
“Won’t the joopa catch us?” Alis did as she was told.  
  
“They’re too slow, they’re only a danger of we’re standing still and there are lots of them. Just keep it running around the depression to build up the speed to get out,” Wolffe yelled. “Then when it’s right, tip the angle of your orbit.  
  
“Okay!” Alis had not broken stride.  
  
Now that the stride was level, Gregor and Wolffe were firing at any joopa that got in their path or came in from the side. Suddenly another rumble. Different this time. Like cracks. No, thousands of tiny crackles.  
  
Wolffe and Gregor scrambled for the hatch and dropped inside as Alis continued her spiraling.  
  
“What is that?” she asked.  
  
“Not good news for the joopa,” Gregor shook his head. The walker trotted and then began its ascent. They crested the depression in time to see the eggs in the base of the nest break apart and the newborn joopa larvae swarmed and devoured their parents. As was their nature.  
  
They parked their walker several clicks west and hiked back to the nest site with their factory sledge. The joopa pupae had sprouted their wings after the meal and moved on. But there were plenty of unhatched eggs to gather. They only had to fight a few other scavenging animals for them.  
  
\--  
The dash panel buzzed.  
  
“What’s that flashing,” Gregor opened his eyes.  
  
“Big. Looks like Aqra alright,” Wolffe looked through the scopes.  
  
“Let’s shoot him,” Alis suggested.  
  
“Then who are we going to sell the guns to?” Wolffe asked.  
  
“WHAT? Uncle, no!” Alis screeched the walker to a halt.  
  
Gregor was offended, “I don’t care who you are, or where you came from...”  
  
Wolffe laughed, “She’s Yuki of Akazuki.”  
  
Gregor shook his head, “Whatever. She drives badly.”  
  
Alis stared him down unapologetically. She turned savagely to Wolffe, “Uncle, we CAN’T sell the guns to slave traders. I WILL NOT!”  
  
“You don’t understand this world! These are the only people who have any money...” Wolffe was suddenly really ashamed of how she saw him.  
  
“You can’t make excuses! Wrong is wrong! Isn’t there some other way?” Alis’ eyes were pleading.  
  
“I wish there was, but there isn’t. You want to get enough cash to leave this place, this is the best way,” Wolffe was beginning not to care if he sounded condescending.  
  
“Obviously it’s not. Gregor, are you okay with this?”  
  
“What?” Gregor was already strapping on his gun.  
  
“This is the plan,” Wolffe used his army commander voice.  
  
“Well I don’t agree!” Alis was really angry.  
  
“Look, we’re just trying to keep you safe,” now Wolffe really hated how she saw him. He pointed out the windscreen, “Out there are several dozen men with enough firepower to disable our vehicle and starve us out. Do I really NEED to say what they’ll do to you?”  
  
“What about them?” Alis pointed out the windscreen at the Seelian slaves they had corralled in an electro fence.  
  
“Wolffe, that slippery bastard is gonna get suspicious if we just sit here,” Gregor was focused in mission mode.  
  
Alis crossed her arms, “I guess I get nothing to say about it.”  
  
“No reward is worth this,” Gregor rolled his eyes.  
  
"Oh yeah," Wolffe yelled, "Then just what do YOU suggest we do about it?"  
  
\--  
Wolffe and Gregor descended the leg ladder to negotiate.  
  
Wolffe had his rifle strapped to his back, safety on. Gregor had his personal sidearm. They left the walker parked a distance away and marched over the sand to visit with Aqra.  
  
“I don’t know what magic conjured you two. I was just thinking of you,” Aqra greeted them. He was seated on a lawn chair under a sun shade, drinking Moche soda. Looks like you’ve added some serious firepower. How do you get so lucky?”  
  
Wolffe looked back over his shoulder and his prosthesis was able to see Alis creeping among the bundle of guns strapped to the top of the AT-AT.  
  
“We can aim the guns by remote if you get any funny ideas,” Wolffe lied. Wolffe tried to be distracting so Aqra didn’t look and notice Alis. “They’re for sale if you want them. Our walker is awkward with all the extra weight.”  
  
“What were you using them for?” Aqra drank from the soda bottle and gestured with the gigantic walking stick.  
  
“Oh, you know. Bullseying joopa. What else?” Gregor shrugged.  
  
“You guys don’t look as if you have a catch,” Aqra craned his neck around them to see the walker. Wolffe turned nervously. Alis hid before he saw.  
  
“I know. They’re useless to us. Can’t eat guns after all. So what do you say you buy them? Take them off our hands and we’ll be eating prepared steaks at the saloon off of whores stomachs by nightfall,” Wolffe proposed, rubbing his hands together.  
  
“Alright. But I want to test them to make sure they’re in working order,” Aqra beckoned with his walking stick.  
  
Two henchmen aimed blasters at Gregor and Wolffe.  
  
Aqra showed his filed teeth, “No funny business. You unload them.”  
  
–  
Gregor and Wolffe took a long time to remove the guns by themselves, while Alis hid inside the vehicle. They had then dragged each over the sand to Aqra’s canopy on a sledge. Once Aqra had them down, he beckoned for some henchmen to man them. They immediately aimed for the walker.  
.  
“Now, if you surrender the walker, I will let you guys walk back to Guanoton without shooting you in the backs. Otherwise, we blow the thing and you two as well,” Aqra waved his staff.  
  
“You double crossing Rocarian dirtfish!” Wolffe looked back at the walker. “Go ahead. Blow it up.”  
  
“Wolffe, what about Yuki?” Gregor’s eyebrows flew up.  
  
The henchmen aimed and fired.  
  
“NO!” Wolffe screamed.  
  
Suddenly, all four guns backfired and blew up the henchmen crowded under Aqra’s canopy.  
  
Wolffe dropped to his knees laughing. Alis aimed the walker guns at where Aqra sat with the remaining henchmen. Alis fired off a few rounds at them, the walker had armor to withstand their handguns as they returned blasts. Gregor made short work of the henchmen by launching a grenade. The slaves ran for cover, cowering behind some crates of supplies.  
  
–  
  
Alis got down from the walker and ran to them. Wolffe hugged her tight.  
  
“I thought I’d lost you, girl,” he choked a few sobs into her shoulder.  
  
“I flooded the guns before you unloaded them, just like I told you I would,” Alis cried.  
  
They hugged each other tighter.  
  
“I told you it would work, Uncle,” Alis broke his hold and wiped her nose.  
  
Wolffe wiped his nose, “You were right.” He put his arm around her neck and walked over to Gregor.  
  
They all turned to look at the slaves.  
  
“How can we help them?” Alis asked.  
  
“They’re from here,” Wolffe observed the tentative beings emerging and beginning to loot the slave traders’ posessions. “Of course now we have nobody to buy and nothing to sell.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter, Uncle, we’ll figure something else out. If we’re stuck here for a while it’s fine,” She picked up Aqra’s walking stick, “At least we can tell people that this piece of crap won’t be bothering them anymore. She threw the stick. It hit a rock and rang. Alis, Wolffe and Gregor looked after it. The stick had cracked open and a solid gold bar popped out.  
  
–  
They brought the gold to the Youpee station to trade. A gold seller was there to help people pull their dental fillings to pay gambling debts or to pay out cash to prospectors bringing in the raw material.  
  
“Oh yeah, the last guy we had in here wanted to liquidate his stock of puffer pigs to start over off world,” the gold seller had to weigh the bar in pieces it was so large.  
  
“You don’t say?” Wolffe played dumb.  
  
“Now I have too many puffer pigs,” he reported.  
  
“Hey Wolffe, we could start prospecting. Get money that way?” Gregor brainstormed.  
  
\--  
They got the cash and sat down with some drinks to celebrate.  
  
Wolffe right away started telling stories.  
  
“So back on Saleucami, Rex is castrating this eopie, and he throws the testes into a bucket and goes on with stitching up, when out of nowhere, this fricking Saleu eagle swoops down and takes the bucket. And Rex is all like, hell no. So he throws a rock at the bird, hits it dead on the ass and it drops the bucket. He dumped out the testicles and left them, but he scolded the eagle something terrible for taking his best bucket. After that, the damned thing would come around, so Rex would leave it scraps,” Wolffe laughed his way through the story.  
  
“Where was I during all this?” Gregor asked.  
  
“YOU named the eagle. Don’t you remember? Beaky?” Wolffe fired back.  
  
“Did it have two heads or something?” what Gregor said didn’t make any sense.  
  
Wolffe ignored it, “All I’m saying is, even Rex wouldn’t be so stupid as to let that thing come near his flesh. Never mind hump his head.” Wolffe was still incredulous about the hawk breeding ‘collection’ hats Alis described from her farm.  
  
“Do you think I had a choice? That was one of the jobs they gave me around the estate. Bird keeper for hunting jaigs is a very prestigious job in an aristocratic household.”  
  
“Did you like it?” Gregor asked, resting his chin on his fist.  
  
“Sure. Out of all the places I can remember, Concord Dawn was the nicest. But I guess there are lots of places I haven’t been yet,” Alis had been practically euphoric. She thought they were all going.  
  
“Have you given any thought to where you might want to go from here?” Wolffe hazarded tentatively. The money wasn’t nearly enough to get them anywhere useful, never mind set them up. His hands were trembling slightly, anticipating a blow. Then, as he did when he was extremely close to a broken heart, he steered into the skid. “Would you ever consider going to Coruscant to find your daddy?”  
  
Alis’ eyes grew wide with angry disbelief.  
  
Wolffe went on as one does when in great discomfort, “If anyone knows where your mommy went, well, he might. I just think maybe you should go see him, at least let him know you’re alive. I’m sure he cares.”  
  
“He didn’t want me! He used to say it all the time. Mom thought he didn’t really mean it. She thought at least he would take care of me if something happened to her,” Alis was flushing pink with anger.  
  
“Look, I ain’t saying all fathers are good. Hell knows mine was about the most useless dad there ever could be. But I am saying that you don’t know what else he was dealing with necessarily. Maybe they threatened his job and promised he couldn’t be hired anywhere else. And you don’t know what they told him. I remember ‘Rat Bottom, Coruscant then. It was shitty. Maybe he thought the work camp was more like a colony than slave labor and you might have a chance at something better. Wards of the state at least had to be fed and lodged. Better than being homeless, I guess. Not everyone is smart enough to realize that authorities lie a lot.”  
  
“Or maybe he didn’t want the inconvenience,” she was really crying now.  
  
Wolffe felt an impulse to go near to her, but he didn’t think he should presume to hug her when he hadn’t been asked. So he put his hand on his hip, which he was sure looked really stupid, but it was too late to change it. So he started pacing a little, “Some guys just aren’t mature enough to think outside of themselves. Sometimes they change that, but it can take a long time. All I’m saying is, maybe by now, he is the kind of person who deserves a chance.” Wolffe couldn’t stop himself before he admitted, “It’s all I would want…If I were him. If I had a great kid like you.”  
  
“But how can I go alone?” she crossed her arms and shivered a little as if she was cold.  
  
“You have to. Because you’re the only one who can,” Wolffe finally felt he could drop the arm and droop his head. Alis wasn’t looking, since she was doing the same.  
  
–  
The money was enough for a decent fake id and a ticket to Coruscant.  
  
Wolffe looked at her chosen alias and was proud. “Chris P. Bacon, nice. We aren’t going anywhere, so if it doesn’t pan out, you know where to find us,” Wolffe assured her. “Okay, so you have the names I told you to look up?” Wolffe asked.  
  
“Sir, yes, sir,” Alis wasn’t looking at him. Like a good soldier, she was focused on the mission.  
  
“Those are all the people I know on Coruscant who were friendly to us back in the day. They might be able to help you get work or find a place to stay,” Wolffe handed her a list.  
  
“I know people, remember? I’m from there,” Alis took the list awkwardly, trying to hide that her hands were stuck in paralysis. She’d bypassed trembling right through to freezing.  
  
Wolffe pretended not to notice. He had trained thousands of brothers for the battlefield. No matter how well prepared they were, all of them had reactions. Physical symptoms of the momentary panic were common. Usually they melted away pretty fast, once training and preparation kicked in.  
  
“Remember, you might be interrogated when you reach the port of entry. Your story is that you are a citizen of the Empire, born on Coruscant and you were kidnapped out of the Imperial orphanage. That’s all true. You are now of age that they can’t keep you as a ward of the state. You tell them you’ve just escaped and you’ve come back home because your loyalty has always been to the Empire. Just act super bewildered and dumb, the way Imperials like their women. White girl like you is getting through no problem. They’ll probably allow you to get new credentials once they look you up and determine identity, but it will take a while while your case is pending.”  
  
“Sir, yes, sir,” Alis nodded.  
  
“Write when you can, just to tell me you got there safe,” Wolffe put his hands in his pockets and kicked at the ground. “Maybe by then, K-Town will be rebuilt.”  
  
“I’ll write, I’ll find out everything I can about your friends on Coruscant and I’ll tell you,” she hugged him, “I’m sure she’s out there, don’t give up hope.”  
  
He hugged back. He knew he was a selfless creature, sobbing into her shoulder so he wouldn’t have to look her in the eye. Sending her away wasn’t what he wanted to do at all.  
  
“I love you, Uncle Wolffe,” she whispered back. Then she let him go.  
  
She briefly hugged Gregor, “Love you.”  
  
He laughed nervously, “Oh, hey, you seem nice. My name’s Gregor.” He patted his pocket for his wallet.  
  
Alis coughed a half sob, half chuckle. She wiped her eyes and boarded the vessel, taking deep breaths all the way up the ramp.  
  
Wolffe waved, but she didn’t look back.  
  
“Who are you waving at, you creep?” Gregor was having a bad memory day. “Aren’t you the one who is always saying girls don’t like it when strangers wave at them or yell at them on the street.”  
  
Wolffe figured it would be easier for him the less he talked about her. He waited for Gregor to bring it up. But he never did, aside from a stray reference or two to ‘whatshername’ or occasionally, ‘The Princess’. Wolffe pretended not to remember and Gregor would already be on to talking about Abafar, or the relative dodginess of shellfish on various worlds, or something else.  
  
–  
They were having a smoke on the head of the walker. Wolffe was observing the flights of birds in the distance.  
  
Wolffe was in a mood. He had a sinus infection and it was giving him a headache.  
  
Gregor didn’t know why, but he was trying to get Wolffe to be more positive. Wolffe had been visibly sad, but Gregor couldn’t remember why and he was afraid he was supposed to know. Or worse still, that he’d caused it. He hoped it was something like male menopause.  
  
So Gregor tried to accentuate the positive, “Well what about the fresh air, you have some complaint about that? You have a complaint about every aspect of your existence.”  
  
Wolffe made a face, “I hate being a clone. We're the lowest of the karking low, the scum of the earth, the most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some people hate the Republic, but I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, were created by wankers. We can't even pick a decent culture to be created by. We were ruled by effete assholes. It's a shite state of affairs and all the fresh air in the world will not make any karking difference.”  
  
Gregor changed the subject. He hoped he picked something that would maybe inspire Wolffe to make some jokes, “I told you last time, I think I heard that the rations at those UP stations are made of ground up human. They are definitely saltier than the ration bars at the ore mining stations,” Gregor sounded unperturbed that they might just have eaten some people for dinner. The joopa eggs had long since run out.  
  
“Do you see what I see?” Wolffe thought he wanted to see the object glinting in the sky more closely. As easy as he thought it, his prosthesis zoomed in. “Well I’ll be damned,” Woflfe sighed. And there it was clear as day, the Ghost.  
  
–


End file.
